Property developer and fund manager Tishman Speyer plans to raise up to one billion dollars in a private fund within 8-10 months for Indian realty projects, according to Revathy Ashok, the managing director for its India unit.
"We still have some money left over from a previous one and we are already talking to investors for our next fund, though we haven’t started road shows yet," Ashok told reporters at a capital markets conference.
Tishman has raised $350 million in a private fund this year and is currently funding three projects in south India, she added.
High borrowing costs and a stock market slump have compelled real estate firms to seek private equity for funding projects. Private equity investment in India and China remained steady in the first half of the year, with India seeing a 3.2% increase to $6.8 billion and China registering a 3% rise to $5.8 billion, according to the Asia Venture Capital Journal.
Real estate prices in India have cooled this year after a 3-year boom, as a series of interest rate hikes by the Reserve Bank of India to tame soaring inflation hit consumer demand for new homes and office spaces.
New York-based private equity firm Jina Ventures plans to raise up to two hundred million dollars by the end of 2008 to invest mainly in manufacturing firms in India, its managing partner Ron Shah said.
"We are talking to investors from Switzerland, the US, and Japan and should be able to wrap up the fund by end-2008," Shah said at the capital markets conference.
Jina Ventures raised $50 million in 2005, which it invested in 12 Indian firms and has since exited these investments, Shah added.
He noted that opportunities in India remain abundant, but the current market volatility might delay significant foreign investment.
India’s main stock index has fallen approximately 27% this year after a five-year bull run, impacted by uncertainty in world markets and domestic factors such as double-digit inflation and moderating economic growth.