Nisus Finance, Phoenix ARC invest nearly Rs 100 crore in Ahmedabad commercial project
Alternate investment management firm Nisus Finance Group and Kotak Mahindra Group’s asset reconstruction arm Phoenix ARC have invested nearly Rs 100 crore in a late-stage commercial project Swaminarayan Business Park in Ahmedabad’s Narol locality.
The investment will help Nisus Finance and Phoenix ARC take over the project and exit the loans of the erstwhile lender DHFL through Piramal Capital & Housing Finance.
Nisus Finance has invested in the project through its latest fund Real Estate Special Opportunities Fund -1 (RESO-1) managed by Nisus BCD Advisors LLP, which is an alternative asset manager of Nisus Finance Group. Nisus has recently launched the RESO-I fund with a corpus of Rs 700 crore.
Both Nisus BCD and Phoenix ARC will continue to have equal charge on the project. This is the first instance of a joint investment by Nisus BCD and Phoenix ARC in the same transaction.
“This investment is centric to our strategy in the RESO-1 Fund to generate significant alpha through a strongly risk mitigated structure with high asset and cash flow cover. Our partnership with Phoenix ARC is the culmination of our extensive mutual understanding in capitalizing highly value accretive projects that not only deliver superior projects in a short period but also successfully exit both our investments rather quickly,” said Amit Goenka, MD & CEO Nisus Finance.
This investment is in line with the focus of the fund RESO-1 that is looking to acquire or discharge loans of erstwhile lenders in projects that have high cash flows, significantly large cover, short exit period and compelling risk mitigated returns to standard credit opportunities.
With this Nisus Finance has also forayed into the property market of Ahmedabad in line with its plan to venture into high growth real estate markets. Recently, Nisus Finance invested into Indore and NCR property markets and is looking at risk mitigated opportunities beyond its target markets of Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), Pune, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, and Chennai.
This is also the first investment of Nisus Finance into a late-stage commercial project that has been well received and sold and includes prominent buyers like DMart and large brand occupiers.
Swaminarayan Business Park is owned by Dharmadev Group through its development entity MH Infraprojects in Ahmedabad’s Narol locality.
The project spread over a land parcel of nearly 18,000 metres with 5.24 lac sq ft of saleable area. It is spread across 6 commercial blocks of which one block is already significantly leased to India’s top brands. The balance five blocks are nearly complete and have already been majorly sold to top retail, and corporate enterprises. Nearly 80% of the project is complete and has all approvals in place, with balance construction is on and the project delivery is scheduled within 12 months.
Dharmadev Group, promoted by its Chairman Umang Thakkar, has so far delivered over 30 million sq ft across several projects in Gujarat. The group owns several land parcels across key cities of Gujarat and is foraying into the Mumbai market.
Nisus Finance Group manages several AIF funds including RECOF-I, a category II alternative investment fund with a corpus of Rs 500 crore. This real estate focussed fund makes opportunistic medium term structured investments in mid-income, affordable housing and plotted development projects.