The reorganization of Tata’s realty and infrastructure businesses is being seen as a part of Tata Sons chairman N. Chandrasekaran’s business restructuring plan for the larger Tata group. Photo: Abhijit Bhatlekar/Mint
Mumbai: Tata Sons Ltd, the holding company of the Tata group, on Thursday said it was reorganizing its real estate and infrastructure businesses to simplify structures and fast-track growth.
In a statement, Tata Sons said its commercial and residential businesses will now come under a single roof led by a new chief, but stopped short of announcing a merger.
Sanjay Dutt, chief executive of India operations and private funds at Singapore-based real estate developer Ascendas-Singbridge has been named as managing director of Tata Realty and Infrastructure Ltd, which has commercial, residential and infrastructure projects.
Dutt will also supervise operations at Tata Housing Development Co. Ltd which builds solely residential projects. Currently, the two companies operate as separate units of Tata Sons.
The realty and infrastructure businesses were reorganized “in order to simplify structures, leverage synergies and scale business rapidly”, the statement said.
“The real estate and infrastructure businesses will both continue to grow given the needs of India’s fast-growing economy, and the Tata Group has the resources, skills and scale to make a significant impact,” N. Chandrasekaran, chairman, Tata Sons said in the statement.
Sanjay Ubale, current managing director and chief executive of Tata Realty and Infrastructure, will head “the longer cycle businesses of infrastructure development and concessions”.
He has been appointed as head (infrastructure and urban Solutions) at Tata Sons, and will report to Banmali Agrawala, president (infrastructure, aerospace and defence), Tata Sons. Ubale will also work closely with the group chairman on state-related policy matters.
“This is a great opportunity to build scale in a growing sector like real estate. I look forward to working with competent professionals in these companies to scale up the business to new heights,” said Dutt.
A 20 February report in Business Standard had said that both the subsidiaries would be merged in the next three months as part of the larger consolidation exercise steered by Chandrasekaran.
“There was an element of overlap and though there seems to have been an informal agreement that Housing would do residential and TRIL (Tata Realty and Infrastructure Ltd) would do commercial and infrastructure, there was still duplication because many times, you have a mixed use project. By segregating into two companies, I believe there was an overlap,” said Abhishek Goenka, partner (tax and regulatory services) at PwC, a research and consulting firm.
Tata Realty and Infrastructure is currently developing commercial office buildings, shopping malls and residential projects in Gurugram, Kochi and Nagpur, apart from a mixed use development at Bengaluru. As per Tata Housing’s website, around 70 million sq. ft of residential space are in various stages of development while 19 million sq. ft are in the pipeline.
