Global firm to manage realty

Chesterton Meghraj Property Consultants to expand services

Chesterton Meghraj Property Consultants (CMPC), which recently set up a fully operational office in Kolkata, will launch its project management division (PMD) in the city shortly.

The PMD will facilitate individual projects of clients which require working out a deal between clients, designers, consultants, contracters, operators and staff, with a common goal to finish the work in time and within budget.

CMPC's involvement would be in pre-construction, construction and post construction levels, according to the company.

"The emergence of the retail sector,the impetus in the IT/ITES sectors,the growth in the residential sectors and the emergence of Calcutta in the plans of large national and international players in the real estate industry was strong enough reasons for Chesterton Meghraj to have a fully operational office in Calcutta" Abhijit Das, associate director, said.

"The firm is extremely excited about the short and medium term potential of the city in the IT/ITES segment which will in turn sustain the current growth levels in the retail, commercial and the residential segments", he added.

He said the excellent quality of manpower was the most important differentiating factor in Kolkata, and the firm would work to attract the best human resources from the trade.

"The firm gets access to the best of the national and international enquiries first, which is the most important strength for an organisation in the agency business", Das told Business Standard.

"Clients will get the most organised package of multilevel services, from acquiring land, to the complete organised agency support to get the best possible deal in the market it also gets the facility to manage its property post development and all this at a standard market rate," he claimed.

At present, CMPC earns 60 per cent of its fees from agency services, 20 per cent from consulting and 20 per cent from facility management.

It has already handled some major contracts in Bengal, like a research and consulting job for the Kolkata West International City for the Salim-Ciputra Group, commercial agency deals for insurance companies, retail agency contract for the Lake Mall and the giant South City project, besides the Star Theatre project in the entertainment sector.

Due to the countrywide scale of operations of CMPC, the Kolkata office gets commercial and retail enquiries generated from other metros exclusively and so, for clients with national presence, it was a single point contact for national requirements.

CMPC sees demand from the information technology sector surging in the region.

IT/ITES demand in Kolkata alone would be spurred by the 1 crore square feet of IT/ITES space being put up in the next 2-3 years, CMPC feels. The company is playing an active role in promoting Calcutta as the next IT destination through its offices at Bangalore Chennai and Hyderabad, he said.

The Home Shope was another concept floated in Kolkata CMPC where a customer could walk in or call in for services like Information on new projects at all locations even if the project was not mandated with CMPC, re-sale property deals as well as home loan, painting and insurance enquiries.

At large projects of 200 flats and above, CMPC home shoppe now has a database of resale flats in Highland Park, he clarified.

CMPC was the only corporate agency providing land and investment consulting to corporates in Kolkata, he added.