Milestone Capital Advisors exits Godrej Properties Kolkata project for Rs 200 crore

MUMBAI: Real estate private equity firm Milestone Capital Advisors has sold its entire stake in Godrej Properties residential project Godrej Prakriti in Kolkata for Rs 200 crore. The exit is valued at 2.3 times of the fund’s earlier investment that was made five years ago, said two persons familiar with the development.

As part of the initial investment agreement, Milestone Capital had committed to invest Rs 110 crore for a 49% stake in the project in October 2009, just before the developer’s initial public offering for Rs 500 crore in December 2009. However, the fund invested Rs 84 crore in the 3-million-squarefeet project of Godrej Group’s real estate development arm.

This was one of the private equity firm’s earliest investments through two if its development funds — Milestone Domestic Scheme I & II. “Around 2/3rd of the project, or 2 million square feet, has been completed and part of it has also been handed over to the customers...Another private equity fund has picked up Milestone’s stake in this secondary transaction,” said one of the persons mentioned above.

Milestone Capital confirmed the exit while adding the fund is in talks to invest in some more projects of Godrej Properties, but declined to name the buyer.

“To continue and build on this relationship, we are in discussions for further investments in other projects of Godrej Properties from our new as well as forthcoming funds. Also, we are well on track to raise our 10th fund, Milestone Opportunities Fund 10, which is also modelled on a similar structured debt format, albeit having a much shorter tenure of 3.5 years,” said Rubi Arya, vice chairman & director, Milestone Capital Advisors. Godrej Properties declined to comment for the story, citing silent period ahead of its quarterly earnings on Thursday.

The project is an integrated residential community development spread over 23 acres on Barrackpore Trunk Road in Sodepur close to Rajarhat, the upcoming IT/ITeS hub in Kolkata.

Milestone has so far raised approximatelyRs 1,350 crore through its development funds.

The fund’s investments are spread across 22 million square feet of commercial and residential properties, including affordable housing, premium residential, integrated townships, commercial offices, logistics and warehousing.

Through its development funds, Milestone had earlier exited from Platina, a mixed use commercial project in Hyderabad’s Gachibowli at an investment multiple of 1.53 times, and Belfort, a senior living project in Pondicherry, at an investment multiple of 1.83 times.