Bengaluru: Altico Capital India Pvt. Ltd, a non-banking financial company (NBFC), plans to invest around Rs3,000 crore in real estate projects over the next five months with a focus on construction financing.
Altico, which is backed by Clearwater Capital Partners LLC, Abu Dhabi Investment Council and Varde Partners Inc., has also received board approval to raise and extend its debt limit by Rs2,000 crore.
The fresh debt will be raised from a range of sources, including domestic and foreign banks, mutual funds, multilateral financial institutions, external commercial borrowing (ECB) and life insurance companies.
Altico has so far deployed around Rs7,000 crore across a hundred or so real estate projects covering more than 100 million sq.ft area in seven cities. However, in the first six months of 2017-18, between April and September, Altico Capital, like many other investors, was on a wait-and-watch mode given the uncertainties in the new real estate law (Real Estate and Regulation Act or RERA) followed by the goods and services tax (GST) implementation.
“We are now on deployment mode. Altico intends to be an end-to-end capital solutions provider offering a diversified product range including structured finance, construction finance. Going forward, as our cost of capital comes down further, we also intend to explore lease rental discounting,” said Sanjay Grewal, chief executive officer, Altico Capital.
Grewal said that investment opportunities are many in the current scenario, and the demand is high for last-mile financing of projects.
On the fund-raising front, Altico plans to conclude the process in the next six months.
It also recently concluded its first ECB issuance of Rs320 crore with Mashreq Bank.
Altico is also in the process of converting itself from a private limited company to a public limited one which may help in opening a fresh source of debt-raising from insurance companies, the firm said on Tuesday.
“Altico’s strategy reflects the most active areas in real estate space. We continue to engage with developers who are focussed on completing their under-construction projects to meet their RERA timelines. Another key area is to focus on funding the growth capital requirements of developers in the fast growing affordable housing segment. Additionally, we continue to augment our ongoing funding to the commercial/ office construction activity besides exploring new emerging segments like the industrial and warehousing space,” said Amit Pachisia, chief credit officer of Altico.