ASK group to invest Rs 1,000 cr as equity in housing projects

Financial services firm ASK group will invest over Rs 1,000 crore as private equity in housing projects this fiscal despite demand slowdown and uncertainty in the market after the new realty law came into effect.

ASK group, which invested Rs 700 crore in last fiscal, expects more opportunity in the real estate sector after the implementation of the new realty law and the GST, a company official said.

"We are planning to invest more than Rs 1,000 crore as equity investment in the mid-segment and affordable housing segment in 2017-18," ASK Property Investment Advisors Managing Director Amit Bhagat told PTI.
 

"We are more convinced of the opportunity due to ensuing consolidation in the sector after introduction of RERA and GST. There is a room for only serious, committed, customer- centric and well capitalise player in the sector," he added.

ASK Property Investment Advisors is a venture of the ASK group set up to manage and advise real estate dedicated funds. It mainly invests in housing projects in six major cities-- Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad.

Bhagat said the company has already invested about Rs 300 crore during this fiscal and it has a healthy pipeline.

ASK Group in May this year invested Rs 200 crore in ATS Infrastructure's mixed use development project 'Knight Bridge' in Noida. This deal marked the company's foray into the commercial real estate space.

Bhagat said the group has so far invested Rs 3,000 crore in the real estate projects in last 6-7 years and made an exit of worth Rs 1,000 crore with a healthy return on investment of 18-30 per cent at project level.

On fund raising, he said the company has raised Rs 535 crore so far under its seventh fund and will reach Rs 1,000 crore by March 2018.

The developers are raising funds from domestic as well as global investors to construct their projects.

ASK group has four key businesses -- wealth advisory and multifamily office service - ASK Wealth Advisors, portfolio management services - ASK Investment Managers, real estate private equity - ASK Property Investment Advisors and private equity management - ASK Pravi Capital Advisors.