DB Realty's Shahid Balwa: From college dropout to billion-dollar realtor

MUMBAI: Shahid Balwa mingled with his guests and ensured they were taken care of at a dinner following a Firoz Khan play at the NCPA, which was sponsored by D B Realty last month. The 37-year-old managing director of the construction firm, which has stunned the real estate industry because of its meteoric rise in barely five years, seemed least perturbed by the gathering 2G storm. "He is known to take good care of everyone," said a source in the property market. After the party, a retinue of tough-looking men escorted him to his BMW-7 series car and he sped away.

Balwa's arrest late Monday night from his Almeida Park residence in Bandra (West) set tongues wagging in Mumbai's cut-throat builders lobby. The boy who grew up in a small family home near the landmark Maratha Mandir cinema at Mumbai Central and studied at Mazgaon's St Mary's School went on to become one of the wealthiest people in the world. The Forbes list has him as India's 66th richest man with a net worth of US $1.06 billion.

Hailing from the Chilya Sunni Muslim community, Balwa, who speaks immaculate Gujarati (his forefathers were from that state), dropped out of college and entered the family's hotel business. His father, Usman, started Balwa's restaurant at Marines Lines and Balwa's Hotel at Mumbai Central.

In the late 1990s when the Balwas expanded, they sold their Mumbai Central house and bought a bungalow plot in Bandra from a Parsi family for Rs 2 crore. "They migrated to the US, but we are still friends. A similar-sized plot will now cost Rs 70 crore and even a person like me will think twice before buying," Shahid Balwa told TOI recently. The businessman's profile shot to dizzying heights after he tied up with developer Vinod Goenka to form DB Realty in 2006. In a few years, the construction company claimed to have 21 million square feet of saleable area in ongoing projects and another 40 million square feet in upcoming projects.

In corridors of power, D B Realty is widely perceived to be backed by a top state politician. Bureaucrats talk in hush tones about how files of the construction company are speedily approved. Last year, D B Realty won the right to redevelop the 100-acre Bandra (East) government colony along with Ackruti City and the Pune-based Kakade Infrastructure. Other city-based builders allege the government procedure of inviting tenders for the mega-project lacked transparency.

Sources said D B Realty is also one of the biggest beneficiaries of a controversial parking policy, in which the government gave additional FSI to builders who constructed public parking lots on a portion of their land.