Monday, March 24, 2008

Red Fort Capital Plans $800 Mn. Real Estate Fund

Red Fort Capital will launch second in the series offshore fund, Red Fort India Real Estate Fund II next month with size of $800 Mn.
The fund will invest in FDI-compliant projects in the residential, commercial, retail and hospitality sectors and has an investment threshold of Rs 40 crore ($10 million). ‘’We are expecting returns of 30 per cent,’’ said Subhash Bedi, partner. Red Fort has also received approvals for domestic realestate fund.

Red Fort India Real Estate Fund I has given returns in excess of 55%.

A host of global private equity players, including Blackstone, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and Tishman Speyer and domestic funds of ICICI, Kotak and HDFC, has committed or invested nearly Rs 20,000 crore ($5 billion) in the Indian realty sector.

Read More on Business Standard

The CDS Iceberg


Two graphs from NY Times that put into perspective the seriousness of the issue.

India on Kuwait Finance House's Radar

In this Bloomberg interview, CEO & GM of Kuwait Finance House Mr. Mohammed Sulaiman Al-Omar spoke about his plans for expansion into GCC & India-China markets. "We have to be there, whether or not they have the legal infrastructure and environment for Islamic banking. "
"India is going through major economic changes. The purchasing power of the middle income has increased. They have a lot of demand for real estate, hotels and services, industrial parks, office buildings. They have heavy, light-to- medium industries. All of it comes into one basket and it is a very good market. We can do investment activities for our accounts, for our clients in terms of funds and that could be in direct investment or real estate".

As has often been commented, he added "GCC countries have a good sizeable income after oil prices rose to more than $100. That has created good liquidity in the market. GCC countries have tremendous inflows.''

Unitech to raise $500 Mn. from Lehman, Deutsche Bank

Lehman Brothers & Deutsche Bank will invest $500 Mn. in a Unitech SPV.

A source suggests talks are in advanced stage for two commercial projects at Santa Cruz (Mumbai), for developable office space of 2Mn. Sq.Ft. The deal might close in 3 weeks.

This project will be a Unitech first in Mumbai, as the firm gets aggressive outside NCR, it's home zone.

Poor market conditions, and reducing funding options have been hard on realestate companies, but everyone loves a good deal.

Read the full story on ET

Bajaj Capital To Expand With $50 Mn.

Bajaj Capital is planning to raise $50 Mn. to expand it's network. Bajaj Capital is a 4 decade old investment advisory & financial planning firm owned by KK Bajaj.
Sources indicate that Citigroup Venture Capital and Barings Private Equity are among the funds which have shown inclination to fund Bajaj Capital. In addition to being an investment advisory and financial planning company, Bajaj Capital is also a Sebi-approved Category-I Merchant Banker.
The company currently has 170 outlets across the country and is understood to be expanding. Early this year, Bajaj Capital started online trading under the Just Trade brand, which also offers online investment advisory services.

As reported in Business Standard

CRISIL to relook ratings

CRISIL is taking a re-look at ratings it assigned to debt issued by Indian Arms of 27 global financial institutions.
The ratings here derived support from parent ratings in western markets, which have now undergone change. They need revision to reflect several downgrades in the western markets.

Some of the financial entities rated by Crisil for their domestic operations include ABN Amro Bank, ABN Amro Securities, Barclays Bank, Citibank, Citicorp Financial, Citicorp Capital Markets, DSB Bank, Deutsche Bank, DSP Merrill Lynch, GE Capital Services, JP Morgan, Rabo India, Standard Chartered Bank, Bank of Nova Scotia and HSBC. Reports ET