Hiranandani group, one of the top real estate builders in the country whose focus on technology has significantly increased will invest about Rs 8,500 crore over the next 3 years to develop data centres and industrial parks across various cities.
Niranjan Hiranandani, founder and Chairman, Hiranandani group told news agency PTI that the real estate market has recovered quite a lot following the severe impact on sales during the April-June quarter in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Housing sales in November were 20% up on an average across major cities, when compared to the same month last year, Hiranandani informed. He, however, expects sales to be lower by 15-20% during 2020 calendar as compared to the last year, the report added.
He also said, “We have set up Asia's largest data centre in Navi Mumbai. We are now planning a second data centre in Greater Noida and a third one near Chennai.
According to Hiranandani, problems arise when traditional WAN architectures, loosely coupled with the public internet, are held on to support this new environment. This creates struggles to deliver consistent, high-quality performance of these apps to users – employees, partners, etc.
“We are going very aggressive on data centre side,” he added. Last year, Hiranandani Group had forayed into development of data centre parks with its new business venture Yotta Infrastructure, to tap the rising demand for data storage capacity.
The first data centre is located at Panvel. The first phase of this project comprising 8.2 lakh sq ft has already been inaugurated in July this year. Yotta Infrastructure will invest around Rs 5,000 crore over the next 3 years as it aims to capture about 25% of the market by end of FY 2025, he said, adding that the investment numbers will go up substantially over the next 7-10 years.
He also mentioned that the company is developing industrial, logistics/warehousing parks via a joint platform with global investment firm Blackstone. Over the next 3 years, Greenbase Industrial and Logistics Parks – the joint venture (JV) – will invest Rs 3,500 crore for developing projects across various locations, he added.
Greenbase will develop two industrial parks at Talegaon and Nashik in Maharashtra and one at Oragadam near Chennai, he notified. Besides, the JV is looking to develop more industrial parks.
Talking about the source of funding for planned investments, Hiranandani told that it is being financed through equity and bank loans. He also highlighted that the group's debt level is comfortable and secured against the rent-yielding assets and completed housing stocks.
