Vijay Mallya offers $4 mn apartments in Bangalore

MUMBAI: Billionaire Vijay Mallya, owner of the world’s second-largest liquor company, is razing his ancestral home in Bangalore to build $4 million apartments as the number of people rich enough to afford them grows.

United Breweries Holdings, which owns controlling stakes in Mallya’s liquor, beer and airline units, and Prestige Estates Projects are jointly developing the 4.5 acre (1.8 hectare) plot in the technology hub, home to Google Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Infosys Technologies Ltd. Construction will start in December, Irfan Razack, chairman of Prestige, said on Wednesday after the developer’s shares debuted.

Demand for luxury apartments in India is rising as the biggest rally in stocks in 18 years in 2009 boosted the ranks of the affluent in the thirdfastest growing major economy.

Mukesh Ambani, India’s richest individual , will move into a 27-storey skyscraper in south Mumbai that cost $2 billion to build and is the world’s most expensive home, according to Forbes Magazine. “There is now considerable demand for high-end apartments in Bangalore, and it is led by the senior management class, corporate houses, non-resident Indian businessmen and high-networth individuals,” said Anuj Puri, Mumbai-based chairman of Jones Lang LaSalle Meghraj, the local unit of the world’s second-largest commercial property broker.

The combined net worth of the nation’s 100 wealthiest people climbed to an all-time high of $300 billion this year, equivalent to a quarter of the country’s gross domestic product, according to Forbes. India’s wealthy may almost double their assets to $6.4 trillion over the next five years as economic growth swells their ranks, Credit Suisse Group AG said in its global wealth report.