Funds managed
| Fund Name | Asset Class | Licence |
| Indiabulls Real Estate Fund | Real Estate | AIF CAT II |
| Indiabulls India Opportunities Fund | Real Estate | AIF CAT II |
| Indiabulls High Yield Fund | Real Estate | AIF CAT II |
| Dual Advantage Commercial Asset Fund (DACA) | Real Estate | AIF CAT II |
About
Indiabulls Group is one of India’s largest groups in financial services and real estate space. Indiabulls AIF Trust, an initiative by the Indiabulls Group in the Alternate Investment Funds (AIF) space is managed by Indiabulls Asset Management Company Limited (Investment Manager). Indiabulls Asset Management Company (IBAMC) offers close ended, Category II (AIF) targeting strategic investments in good quality assets across Tier 1 cities. The Private equity arm has invested / acquired assets of over ₹ 4,000 Cr across residential and commercial projects in India through its multiple funds since inception.
Key staff
Ambar Maheshwari (CEO) – Maheshwari has over 19 years of experience in corporate finance and consulting across a wide range of industries. Mr. Maheshwari was MD of corporate finance at realty consultant Jones Lang LaSalle. Other than this he has served key positions in companies such as DTZ, KPMG, Ambit Corporate Finance and Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services. https://www.linkedin.com/in/ambar-maheshwari-2a5509/
Investment philosophy
To achieve consistent superior risk adjusted returns on strategic investments and to execute efficient financial structuring to ensure regular income, downside protection, capital appreciation and prudent investor protection measures
Objective
- To partner with reputed developers having proven execution capabilities and track record
- Multi-layer security mechanisms, that endeavours to enhance safety of underlying instruments and align the interests of the development company and investors
- Optimum financial structuring and value add through active asset management
- Well defined exit strategies formulated and documented in transaction agreements
- Implement best in class reporting norms and corporate governance practices
Process
Indiabulls Real Estate Fund
This fund primarily invests in debt securities through listed non-convertible debentures of developers undertaking residential projects in 5 cities/metropolitan areas of India (Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru and Pune). It is a 3 year (extendable by 1+1 years) closed end fund with a target capital of INR 500 crore (green shoe option). This fund intends to invest in under construction residential projects in prominent locations that have a shorter development cycle, receivables backed by significant collateral with an adequate multi-layer security mechanism in place. Indiabulls Housing Finance is the sponsor of the fund.
Fund’s objective is:
Minimum Investment- 1 crore
Target return (Gross IRR)- 21% to 22% (with a hurdle rate of return of 12%)- Periodic pay-outs
Fund Structure
Investment Process
Dual Advantage Commercial Asset Fund (DACA)-2017
DACA invests in pre-leased office assets. Firm’s commercial investment strategy intends to provide downside protection through recourse to completed assets, return through existing rental yields and capital appreciation on exit. The fund seeks investment opportunities in top 7 commercial markets. This fund has a tenure of 5 years with an option of extending it annually for 2 years. The average ticket size for investment through this fund will be in the range of Rs.100 to Rs. 200 crores.
Indiabulls Housing Finance Ltd (IBHFL)
As the name suggests it is a housing finance company and one of the constituents of the Indiabulls Real Estate Funds. It is also the sponsor of the fund with 20% contribution as opposed to 2.5% minimum required as per RBI norms.
Around 21% of IBHFL’s overall loan book is in the form of a corporate mortgage loan portfolio that predominantly consists of lending to real estate developers. Conservative underwriting norms of IBHFL has made it possible to keep its gross NPA of less than 1% and nil NPA in developer financing loan book.
Rated as following by top 5 rating agencies in India:
‘AAA’ by CARE and Brickworks, ‘AA+’ by CRISIL and ICRA A1+ by India Ratings and Research.
Indiabulls Real Estate
Approx. 5.2msft of completed commercial real estate and ~37msft under development (Residential 34 msft and Commercial 3 msft).
Currently 15 projects are ongoing and IBRE has a land bank of 1046 acres and also possesses 2588 acres of SEZ land at Nasik, Maharashtra. In July, 2014, India Bulls Real Estate acquired the prime property, 22 Hanover square in Central London for Rs 1630 crores.
IBREL has assigned a credit rating of AA- for long term debt.
Pre-tax IRR-Post expenses and carry Interest (%) is about 17.36%
Two types of fund:
- Residential Fund
Indiabulls Real Estate Private Equity started its journey in 2015 and has since invested in residential and mixed use developments across major cities of India. The funds have used high yielding debt instruments coupled with long term capital appreciation structures to provide superior risk adjusted returns to investors.
Indiabulls Real Estate Fund, the maiden fund launched in 2015 was raised and deployed in 13 months. The Fund has exited 4 of its 5 investments and ~125% of the corpus has been returned in the form of interest income and principal repayment at pre contracted IRRs.
2. Commercial Fund
Their aim to provide superior risk-adjusted returns on commercial real estate investments across Core, Core plus & Opportunistic strategies across key Indian cities. Objective is to generate stable returns and long term capital appreciation for our invest core real estate capabilities of Tax efficient capital structuring, leasing, asset management and facilities management. The two active commercial Funds have acquired 3 Grade A office assets leased to blue chip IT companies in Gurgaon, Hyderabad and Bangalore and are currently vetting multiple investment opportunities.
Benefits of the Fund structured as secured NCD
- Fund structured as secured NCD which addresses any risk that can arise due to non-completion of project within stipulated time as the security could be used to generate adequate cash flow from timely servicing of payment obligation of NCD’s
- Periodic payments are made so that “proof of concept’’ of developer’s capability is clearly demonstrated early on. And long term redemption premium is also part of return which is taxable as LTCG at a lower rate of around 15%.
- Multi-Layer security mechanism provides additional risk protection:
- Mortgage of Land and Area
- Escrow Mechanism
- Pledge of shares by Promoters
- Personal and Corporate Guarantee.
Media
Indiabulls sees opportunity in the cash crunch of residential property market- Pooja Thakur, The Print, 20th March, 2019.
The fund manages $580 million and has shifted its focus to office buildings after demand for homes waned.
Investor confidence was rocked last year by a series of missed payments by Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd. That exacerbated the problem for developers, which have to repay about Rs 1.29 trillion ($18.7 billion) a year on their outstanding debts but which generate less than half of that in income that can be used for such purposes, an analysis of about 11,000 companies by research firm Liases Foras shows. According to Ambar Maheshwari, the chief executive officer of private equity funds at Indiabulls Asset Management Co., this crisis has helped them get good deals on commercial forey.
He also elaborated that commercial is the new “flavour of the market” and how the market transitioned from 2014 when residential debt deals were the hot picks that gave them returns of around 20%, next came in the hybrids of debt and equity which gave them returns of about 21-22% and presently commercials are in boom. Indiabulls changed with the market demands, this indicates dynamism in the company and its management.
He also made an interesting comment regarding the Residential sector wherein Indiabulls Asset is planning to raise Rs 5 billion affordable housing fund that will invest in homes costing between 5 million and Rs 7.5 million. As he believes that affordable homes will continue to do well because the ticket sizes are smaller and the houses are for end-use as opposed to investment purposes.
Analyst questions
Q1- What are risks associate with real estate investment fund and how you mitigate those?
Q2- What are the preferable exit routes you use and which parameters govern this decision?
Q3- How do you allocate the fund across various investment themes and what factors you consider while diversification?
Q4- How has your investment strategy has changed across the five funds?
Q5- Were the returns given by the fund consistent over the years and how has the realty landscape impacted the returns?
Prepared by Rajesh Pathak, June 2021
Additional questions –
- As Indiabulls Housing Finance Ltd is one of the components of Indiabulls Real Estate Fund so, as there is sluggishness in the demand of Housing Finance in India- Is it not impacting the overall fund negatively as the demand for houses are going down?
- A question relating to the one above. As per CEO Ambar Maheswari and even the current market trends and future expectations indicates stress in the residential market. Even then we see that currently about 34 msft of Residential is under development and only about 3 msft of Commercial property under development. Why such a high allocation to Residential? Is it possible or is there any plan to make a shift from Residential to commercial for some of the sites at least?
- What is the exit strategy of this fund? And if it is a sale to another fund or entity then what is the target yield?
Prepared by Sanjay Agarwal, June, 2021
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