Shibulal’s family office bets big on hospitality, realty biz
SD Shibulal’s, Infosys co-founder and CEO, a private limited company that deals with his family wealth, is increasing its hospitality along with its real estate business by investing R130 crore. The family office including his family’s holdings in Infosys, runs a resort in Coorg, Karnataka called ‘The Tamara’, a 56-room luxury property, which manages around R6,500 crore by various assets. With the registrar of companies the family office has been registered as Innovations Investment Management India.
Senthil Kumar N, director and CEO of The Tamara said, “We established this family office because we expect the wealth to grow for generations. The BMW family in Germany is into the seventh generation and we want to be something like that.”
Currently two hotel properties are in the process by family ,luxury resort in Kodaikanal ,a hill station in Tamil Nadu which has 50-rooms and a 108-room city hotel in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala.Though R80 crore investment will be required for Thiruvananthapuram property, Kodaikanal will need around R50 crore.
Kumar, who joined Shibulal’s family office in 2005 after some of the family shares were sold at the American Depository Receipts issued by Infosys said we perceived that we need to be proud of the properties we own. We want to do involvement management, not investment management. Coorg property, which started operations in April 2012, broke even in its second year as informed by an IIM-Bangalore and BITS-Pilani graduate, Kumar.
Gaining experience in Hospitality Business
He added, we are gaining experience in running the hospitality business, by doing our own operations and marketing, and we don’t have any partnerships. As per Kumar the family believes in giving an experience rather than sight-seeing. For example the Kodaikanal property is a re-establishment of a 150-year-old building. Today, people are willing to pay the premium, as we can tell those lots of stories.
He further added, when the coffee blossoms, you can’t click photos of millions of honey bees buzzing, referring to the Tamara, which is built amid a 170-acre coffee plantation.
In Valparai Tamil Nadu and Sakhleshpur, Karnataka, the family also owns nearly 900 acres of plantations of coffee and cardamom. The company has 50% stake in ‘Avant Garde Hospitality as other investments, which runs fine-dining restaurants ‘Caperberry’ and ‘Fava’ in Bangalore.
Company also has apartment properties in the US and Germany as the other key portfolio. We manage 800 apartments in US, in the Seattle area which serves US multinationals like Microsoft, Amazon and Starbucks.The Company also has complexes in Berlin and Frankfurt of 20-25 units.
Kumar further added, “We have a prejudice towards real estate. We believe it has the highest probability to cover you against price rises. You can’t make money in a steady way from portfolios when you are managing thousands of crores unless you are a Warren Buffet!”
Source: The Financial Express
Avant Garde, BITS-Pilani, Cardamom, Coffee plantation, Coorg, Fava, Frankfurt, Germany Bangalore, Infosys, Innovations Investment Management India, Karnataka, Kerala, Kodaikanal, Microsoft, Registrar of Companies, Sakhleshpur, SD Shibulal’s, Senthil Kumar N, Starbucks, Tamil Nadu, The Tamara, Thiruvananthapuram, Valparai
