After the sale of the Worli land parcel for Rs 5,200 crore to Japan’s Sumitomo, the 144 year-old Bombay Dyeing wants to be a “significant player” in the listed real estate space by doing marquee projects, said a senior executive of the company.
Besides a 3.5 million square feet project in Dadar area of Mumbai, the company plans to do joint ventures and joint developments with land owners besides developing land parcels of group companies, said Rahul Anand, chief executive, Bombay Realty, the real estate arm of Bombay Dyeing. “With this project (Dadar), JV and JDs and development of land parcels of group companies, we want to do full foray into real estate,” Anand said.
The company is expecting Rs 15,000 crore of revenues from the Dadar project. It plans to launch the project in the first or second quarter of next year. Currently, they are planning the first phase of the project, he said .
The company also has about 11 acres of land in popular hill stations such as Matheran and Mahabaleshwar, and the Industrial belt of Patalganga in Maharashtra where it is looking to build holiday homes and warehousing, he said
When asked whether the company would venture outside Mumbai, he said : “We are happy to explore opportunities in other cities if the projects are profitable to us and land owners ,” he said.
He added that the company would explore ventures such as data centres and warehousing depending on the land parcels they get from land owners and group companies.
Those who have tracked the company said that real estate would remain the mainstay of the company given that property markets are doing well, has attractive margins and land banks the company owns. “They have tried to do a lot of things in retail in the last decade but seems they are focusing on real estate now,” said a senior industry executive.
Upon completion of the deal with Sumitomo, the company will be able to extinguish all its borrowings thereby saving interest costs and releasing the charge on encumbered assets the company’s chairman Nusli Wadia said after the deal was announced.
Bombay Dyeing generated a net revenue of about Rs 1,050 crore between April 2022 and June 2023, through sale of the flats in ICC leading to a reduction in the company’s borrowings by about Rs. 900 crore in the same period, Wadia said.
Bombay Realty developed Springs, a 40-storey tower, in Dadar, and two luxury towers, 59-storey One ICC and 65-storey Two ICC in Island City Centre project in the same area.
