Taurus Investment Holdings plans to raise around $250 million for a fund to invest in India’s commercial and retail real estate

Taurus Investment Holdings plans to raise around $250 million for a fund to invest in India’s commercial and retail real estate market, a top executive at the Boston-headquartered company told ET.
The firm plans to focus on top cities in South India and develop a portfolio of $1 billion over the next five years, said Ajay Prasad, managing director at Taurus Investment Holdings India.

The proposed real estate-focussed fund will be raised in two parts of $125 million each.

Taurus had earlier planned to raise a $500 million commercial and retail fund but decided to shrink its size due to low velocity of deals in the market.

“We consciously delayed the fund raise and are in the process of filing for Sebi approval. We have also started investor meetings parallelly,” Prasad said. “We are adopting a cautious strategy as there are uncertainties in some segments of real estate.”

Taurus Investment Holdings India had kept its fundraising plan on hold due to the pandemic and the resultant uncertainties in the market.

“The new fund will also invest in data centres of up to 25mw capacity and last-mile specialised logistic facilities across smaller cities,” said Prasad.

The firm plans to focus on secondary cities like Visakhapatnam, Coimbatore, Mangalore and Trichy.

Taurus is currently developing 5.5 million square feet of mixed-use space at Taurus Downtown Trivandrum along with the Embassy Group, involving total investment of Rs 1,500 crore. “We have resumed construction of the project after a pause of almost 18 months. The project is expected to be completed by 2024,” said Prasad.

To date, Taurus has purchased, developed and sold more than 55 million square feet of office, industrial, retail and residential assets globally with a total acquisition value of ovef $8 billion.

Global funds have again started looking at deals in the Indian real estate sector.

“There is a huge potential for global funds in India. Office assets will continue to gain fervour from investors due to the steady returns from the asset class, and opportunity to bundle the assets under a REIT. Global funds are also looking to form investment platforms with developers, as they look to build their capabilities in sectors such as industrial and warehousing space, buoyed by the growth in ecommerce and the need for same-day delivery,” said Ramesh Nair, chief executive, India, at Colliers Asia.

In India, office sector investments accounted for almost 35% of total investments in the first half of 2021, indicating a firm belief of investors in the long-term resilience of the segment.