According to sources close to the development, the ministry feels that the National Textile Corporation (NTC), which has put the land on sale, will get better prices than the bid put in by Lodha Developers. The company, which had initially placed a bid of Rs 657.90 crore (Rs 6.57 billion), later hiked it to Rs 710 crore (Rs 7.1 billion), following a request from NTC.
Prices of agricultural commodities have risen 23 per cent so far this month.
Last year, the group held discussions with potential investors and started putting in place a management team to run the fund. Knight Frank India executive director Keku Cola was expected to head the new fund, but he has quit and joined the Shapoorji Pallonji group. According to a report by global research firm Preqin, private equity real estate funds are still struggling to raise capital in the current economic environment.
After Pune, the swine flu scare is affecting footfalls and sales in malls and retail stores in Mumbai. Sales in these places have fallen by up to half in the past two days.
Shopping malls, multiplexes and top retailers in Pune are seeing as much as a 70 per cent drop in business owing to the swine flu outbreak in the city.
Wary of the policing by the All India Council for Technical Education -- the body that regulates technical education in the country -- more and more management schools are going the Indian School of Business way, opting for one-year management programmes and registering themselves as private limited entities under the Companies Act, 1956.
After a long hiatus, home sales are finally back on track. Sales of major real estate developers have more than trebled in the June quarter compared to the preceding three months, amid growing expectations that the good times will continue to roll.
This upturn comes soon after an earlier stalling of demand. In February, DLF, the country's largest property developer, said it had stalled construction on 16 million sq ft of commercial space (retail and office) due to lack of demand. So, too, with other developers like Unitech, Parsvnath and Raheja, who either stalled or slowed the construction of their commercial properties because of a demand-supply mismatch.
Property developers plan more launches in the sub-Rs 20 lakh category of homes, after Monday's Budget concession.
McKinsey, RBS postpone placements by three to six months
Want to appoint CFO, advisory board and governance committee.
Third attempt to get more buyers, property market still quite depressed.
Reliance Gas Transportation India Ltd, the pipeline company wholly owned by Reliance Industries promoter Mukesh Ambani, has decided to write to the finance ministry, seeking a restoration of profit-linked tax benefits the Budget has replaced with an investment-linked tax break.
Patience, however, ran out for over a dozen global brands, including GAS, Replay, Etam and Argos. All of them have ended their joint ventures or franchisee arrangements with Indian retailers in the last one year due to reasons ranging from poor sales and high rentals to mounting losses and failure to open stores on time.
The $6.3-billion Mahindra Group expects to grow revenues from its agri-business venture nearly eight-fold in the next five years by expanding among national and overseas retail chains, a top group official said.
Currently, the company is in the process of demolishing the old buildings and is expected to start construction work on the mill land by the year-end, a top company official said. The company plans to build a hotel and a commercial complex for IT and ITeS (IT-enabled Services) companies on the 20-acre land.
They have graduated from just home delivery to SMS marketing, bulk buying alliances and credit extensions.
Consider this: Kishore Biyani's Future Group, which owns the country's largest retailer Pantaloon, is converting the standalone stores of book and music chain Depot into shop-in-shops within Big Bazaar. While the number of Depot shop-in-shops has risen to 123, that of standalone stores has come down to nine. Same with UK-based footwear brand Lee Cooper.
With the monsoon season to begin and hotels hoping for a robust business at leisure destinations, swine flu could play spoilsport for the hotels, said industry players. At leisure destinations, international tourists form around 35 per cent of the clientele, with around 20-25 per cent coming from the US alone. Last year, tourist arrival in the country was 5.37 million, a fifth of whom stayed in five star hotels.
Whether it would help these cash-starved firms to improve their profit margins is yet to be seen, but such a move would send a strong signal that the phase of price correction is over. "Developers want to send signals that they are good. But if they are increasing above 10-15 per cent, it would be irrational," said Sanjay Dutt, chief executive of Jones Lang LaSalle Meghraj, a property consultant.
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