Indiabulls Real Estate Fund (IREF), the first scheme of Indiabulls AIF (Alternative Investment Fund), has received commitments of around Rs 3 billion within a short span of 3 months since its launch. Further, during this period, Indiabulls Real Estate Fund has also made its first investment- Rs.1 billion in an under-construction residential project of a National Capital Region (NCR) - Delhi based reputed real estate developer - Vatika Group. The fund has subscribed to fully secured, listed non-convertible debentures (NCDs) issued by one of the step-down subsidiaries of Vatika.
Indiabulls AIF is registered as a Category II Alternative Investment Fund under the provisions of SEBI (Alternative Investment Funds) Regulations, 2012 and has been set up as a trust. Indiabulls Housing Finance (IBHFL), the flagship company of the Indiabulls Group, is the sponsor of the IREF and Indiabulls Asset Management Company (IAMC) is the Investment Manager of the fund.
IREF is targeting to raise a total of Rs.10 billion (including a green shoe option of Rs.5 billion) under its first AIF initiative, the Indiabulls Real Estate Fund that was launched in February 2015. The commitments till date of around Rs.3 billion include funds raised from high net worth individuals, family offices, and institutional investors. "The fund is expected to draw down another Rs.2 billion shortly. The target corpus of Rs.5 billion (with a green-shoe option of another Rs.5 billion) is expected to be fully raised over the next three to four months," said Ambar Maheshwari, CEO-Private Equity Funds at Indiabulls Asset management Company. He also added, "We are in advanced discussions with real estate developers in Mumbai, NCR and Bangalore on additional deals and plan to do few more investments shortly."
In line with its strategy, IREF will invest in secured and listed debentures issued by real estate developers. The fund's focus is to invest in under-construction residential projects, primarily in geographies with proven market depth, high pent-up demand, and in projects with low execution risks. The investments will cover residential projects in Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), National Capital Region (NCR), Pune, Bengaluru and Chennai. Akshay Gupta, Group Executive Head & CEO - Indiabulls Asset Management Company said, "We have received an encouraging response to our first real estate fund offering, and our endeavour is to select the highest quality assets in a timely manner. We are confident about our asset selection process and the ability of the fund management team to deliver returns in line with what has been communicated to our investors. While there is a large investment opportunity in the real estate sector, we are measured and calibrated in our investment approach and look at partnering with high quality developers and for the right projects."
Indiabulls Group has built an unparalleled and unmatched ecosystem in the real estate sector spanning across lending to real estate developers, real estate development, and distribution services. Through this initiative in the alternative investment space, Indiabulls Asset Management Company, the Investment Manager for the fund, is set to become one of the leading Real Estate Fund Managers in the country. In January 2015, CARE Ratings assigned its 'CARE AAA (AIF)' rating to the Indiabulls Real Estate fund, reflecting the fund's excellent asset selection ability and asset management capability for the scheme.
