Emaar’s mysterious ‘iconic’ building in India still on the drawing board
The joint venture real estate company of Dubai’s Emaar Properties and India’s own MGF Group is seriously considering the idea of what it calls an “iconic” building in India. The venture has since its launch in the country in 2005, remained focused on high-end residential and commercial properties (in the ratio of 9:1). The development activities of the group have been slowed down by the controversies (Delayed CWG Village flats allocation) and the gloomy real estate sentiment.
Emaar is known worldwide for Burj Khalifa in Dubai which is considered to be the group’s most iconic creation in the world. But it is not still clear that whether the company plans to come up with something similar in India. The “iconic” building that company plans to build in India is still on the drawing board; even the number of storeys in it is still undecided. In a constrained revelation, chief executive (projects) of Emaar MGF, Mr. K Ramamurthy said that the company was is the process of talking with foreign designers and architects for the project.
The company battled controversies related to delayed allocation of flats in Delhi’s Commonwealth Games (CWG) Village for more than two years. This was a joint project with Delhi Development Authority (DDA). The group also struggled with the enforcement directorate case on alleged foreign exchange violations, a Central Bureau of Investigation chargesheet regarding irregularities in a Hyderabad project and failed public offers. As per the sources, it recently restructured its senior management to streamline execution targets. The company has brought on board many other senior professionals at the project head levels.
Following the CWG project of 2010, Emaar MGF hit its lowest in development in 2012 when it neither launched nor delivered a single project. The group showed some signs of recovery in 2013 and launched two, while delivering the first phase of a township and plotted development projects in Jaipur (Rajasthan) and Indore (Madhya Pradesh), besides a group housing in Mohali (Chandigarh). In the words of Mr. Ramamurthy, “2014-15 will be the year of delivery as about eight projects launched earlier will be delivered in this period.” The company has also now tied up with third-party contractors such as Shapoorji Pallonji, IL&FS and JMC to meet project deadlines. In the coming days, the company is likely to maintain its residential-commercial ratio.
Currently, the group is developing in total 54 projects (including project phases) — 45 residential and 9 commercial/retail, with an aggregate saleable area of 42.5 million sq ft, spread across eight cities. It has a land bank of about 10,000 acres (including developed projects), of which 908 acres are in Delhi and 2,369 in Gurgaon. The debt on the company is around Rs 4,000 crore, 60 per cent of which is long-term. “We have been reducing the debt over the years and working on reducing it further.”
Source: Business Standard
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