Gurgaon-based industrial and logistics real estate developer Pragati Group has raised $200 million (about Rs 1,600 crore) in equity from a Singapore-based private equity fund.
With this fund infusion, existing financial partner Morgan Stanley has been provided an exit, the company said, without disclosing the name of the private equity firm.
“We want to be one of the top five industrial and logistics real estate developers in the country by developing a portfolio of 30 million sq ft across key tier-1 and tier-2 Indian cities,” said Jitender Yadav, founder, Pragati Group.
Part of the deal involved the acquisition of two operational assets of about 2 million sq ft in National Capital Region (NCR) – Pragati One and Pragati Farukhnagar Logistics Parks.
“Pragati has worked with companies like Amazon, Flipkart, DHL, Daikin, Bosch, and this capital will enable us to expand to other major cities in India,” said Yadav.
Pragati Group has developed 12 million sq ft of logistics parks over the past decade.
Last year, Flipkart had leased 2 million sq ft of warehouse space with Pragati Warehousing in Delhi-NCR and Ludhiana.
The company is currently working on its upcoming projects covering 3 million sq ft of space for its various other clients and investors across India.
The warehousing industry has mushroomed around Haryana’s Bilaspur Chowk belt, which comprises Pataudi Road, Tauru Road, Farukh Nagar and Jhajjar. It is connected to the KMP Expressway and NH8 and serves as the distribution point for the critical NCR market as well as the nearby towns in Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.
According to CBRE, real estate investments in India in 2022 increased 32% year-on-year to an all-time high of %7.8 billion. In the quarter to December 2022, investments in real estate in the country stood at $2.3 billion, up 64% quarter-on-quarter and 115% year-on-year.
Foreign investors took the lead with a 57% share in the overall investment volume in 2022. Delhi-NCR led investment activity, followed by Mumbai. Cumulatively, the two cities accounted for more than 56% share of the investments in 2022.
Land and development sites dominated investments with a 48% share, followed by the office sector (35%). About 44% of the capital inflows in site and land acquisitions were deployed for residential developments, while 25% went into mixed-use developments.