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52 Gulf Property

Urban developmentsusually influencethe growth of infor-mation technology(IT) services indus-

try – to offer greater comfortto the new urban dwellers.However, in parts of SouthIndia – it is the opposite. Anumber of townships havesprung up in parts of SouthIndian cities that were in-spired by the growth of theIT sector and the technol-ogy-savvy new urban middleclass. Bangalore, Hyder-abad, Chennai and a few

other cities have actuallygrown due to the IT and theoutsourcing industry.

The southern cities ofIndia, in particular Bangalore– the IT capital of the nation– are growing by leaps andbounds. India’s globally suc-cessfully IT industry is pri-marily based in the south,and its phenomenal growthhas led to the developmentof multiple other sectors.Real estate is one of them.

As the regional economyprogresses, it’s not just Indi-ans who are migrating tocities like Bangalore, Hyder-abad and Chennai to en-hance their careers. Evenforeign IT firms are settingup base in these cities, pre-

dominantly Bangalore, tohave a share of the pie. Abooming IT industry hasgiven rise to an economicallystrong middle-income classin India, with tremendouspurchasing power. Today,this massive mid-incomepopulace looks for goodquality in everything thatthey buy. Property, for in-stance.

Mantri Developers PrivateLimited, a Bangalore-basedSouth Indian real estate de-veloper is making hay out ofthis huge demand for afford-able as well as luxury prop-erties in the region. While onone hand with their variedportfolio of luxury projectsthey are luring HNWIs based

in the South, on the otherhand they are offering attrac-tive payment plans for youngIT-employed couples to buyapartments.

Established in 1999 bySushil Mantri, the Chairmanand Managing Director, thecompany has developed notjust residential projects, buthas successfully venturedinto retail, educational, com-mercial and hospitality seg-ments of real estate.

In the 16 years of its exis-tence, the company has builtover two dozen projects.Today, Mantri Developerscumulatively has to its creditover 21 million square feet ofconstructed area, housesover 30,000 residents and

Mantri Developerseye IT professionalsMantri Developerseye IT professionals

Indrajit Sen Senior Reporter

Gulf Property 53

claims to be developing an-other 30 million square feetof projects, which are undervarious stages of construc-tion.

Mantri has a track recordof delivering 1.4 homes perday since inception. It hasalso earned the distinction ofdeveloping one of India’sbiggest malls, the MantriSquare in Bangalore, whichwas previously India’sbiggest mall too.

The enterprise plans tofocus on the residential,commercial, retail, educa-tional and hospitality sec-tors. Besides it hasambitious plans to develophuge ‘IT Parks’, a popularterm in India referring tocommercial spaces whereIndian and foreign softwarecompanies operate from. Itis firmly entrenched inIndia’s urban and IT cities ofBangalore, Chennai, Hyder-abad and Pune and wants tofocus on its projects there.

In an exclusive interviewwith Gulf Property, SanjeevBirari, Sales Head – Interna-tional, Mantri Developerstalks about the projects thedeveloper has delivered andis currently constructing, the

Bangalore property market,and how Non-Resident Indi-ans in the GCC and else-where have responded toMantri’s projects:

Gulf Property: How big isthe workforce?Sanjeev Birari: We startedin 1999. We have the acco-lade of being the first com-pany in India to havereceived a Foreign Direct In-vestment (FDI) and it wasfrom Morgan Stanley. Weare still with them and theyare our equity partner. Soyou can imagine that if a for-eign company chose us forinvestment, they have musthave seen something goodin us. The transparency isthere in us. We have been inthe business for 16 yearsnow.

We completed our firstproject called Mantri Wood-lands in Bangalore in 1999.Till 2003 we had completedalmost 1 million square feetof development. In 2005 weventured into the educationbusiness, and we launchedour brand by the name ofIndus Valley. That was thefirst IB curriculum school inBangalore. That particular

school has been rated asthe top IB curriculum schoolin India. We have got 3schools each in Bangalore,Hyderabad and Pune.

In 2006 we received thefirst FDI in Indian real estate.We were the first recipient ofFDI in real estate. In 2008,we were the first developerin India to be certified forWorld Class ManagementSystems. In 2010, welaunched India’s largest mallcalled Mantri Square in Ban-galore. The same year wealso launched the MantriPinnacle, which is SouthIndia’s tallest residentialtower. In 2013 Mantri wasconferred the CII Sustain-ability Award by the Presi-dent of India Dr. PranabMukherjee.

Till now we have com-pleted more than 5 millionsquare feet of residential de-velopment. We have deliv-ered about 20 moreresidential projects. Wehave projects in Bangalore,Chennai, Hyderabad andPune.

Apart from sales offices inthese four cities, we have in-ternational offices in Dubai,Singapore and San Jose

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Mantri Energia in Bangalore

“There are varioustypes of investorsthat developerstarget. Typically, ifyou as an ITprofessional decideto go back andsettle down in India,you will look atthree IT hubs ofIndia: Bangalore,Hyderabad or Pune.And in all thesethree cities we haveour projects. Sothat is the reasonwhy we stand togain from ourprojects...”

– Sanjeev BirariHead ofInternational Sales,Mantri Developers

54 Gulf Property

trally AC clubhouse. Wehave people like CEOs andsenior officials of major ITcompanies like Oracle andMicrosoft India investingthere.

We also have more than15 to 20 residential projectsin the pipeline and a total of42 pan-India projects. Wewill be coming up with more.

Mantri is presently con-structing over a dozen res-idential projects in SouthIndia, specifically in Ban-galore and Chennai. Couldyou please talk about themin brief?As far as investments areconcerned, it is rare if an NRIthinks of moving back toIndia. Typically an NRI wouldalways think of buying prop-erty in India as an invest-ment. In that case, they donot treat the property like

how an end-user does. Theywant the property they haveinvested in to be an income-generating asset.

For that matter, we have aland bank in the northernpart of Bangalore. There is atech park called ManyataTechpark, where we hold152 acres (61.5 hectares) ofland. We are the only devel-oper to have land inside thetech park. The tech park isan SEZ (Special EconomicZone; an Indian governmentscheme to boost busi-nesses), and that is a zonewhere you are going to gethigh ROI (Return on Invest-ments) and high rentalyields. So we have launchedtwo projects there. There is aproject called ‘Mantri Lithos’that we have launched insideManyata Techpark. There isanother project which wehave soft launched called

‘Energia’. So these projects can give

you a lot of recurring incomeand rental yields, becausethe people who would beworking in the tech parkwould definitely want to livein the vicinity of their work-place in a residential com-munity. And most ITprofessionals prefer to livewithin townships close totheir offices.

Kindly elaborate on yourcommercial projects, in-cluding offices, malls andhotels.Mantri does not sell commer-cial spaces, we will onlylease them. So we do not sellany commercial or office es-tablishments. We have amall management teamwhich looks to our retail proj-ects.

As far as hospitality is con-

(which is in California state ofthe US).

Mantri has delivered multi-ple residential projectsacross Southern Indiancities like Bangalore,Chennai, Hyderabad andone in Pune. Could youbriefly talk about thesecompleted projects in eachof these cities?There are lot of projects thatwe have delivered till today;about 16 in Bangalore only.Two major launches for uswere in Chennai. There is amajor township that we havedeveloped in the IT zone inHyderabad called ‘Mantri Ce-lestia’. We have also devel-oped the largestSpanish-themed develop-ment in India called ‘MantriEspana’, which is almostready in Bangalore; it has gota 65,000 square feet of cen-

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Mantri Lithos Iin Bangalore

Gulf Property 55

cerned we have a franchiseeof Double Tree Hilton for ourhotel apartments project inBangalore. It is an up andrunning hotel, units of whichwe also lease. We manageour hotels and malls our-selves.

We have plans of openingup a number of budget hotelsin Bangalore, Pune andChennai.

With regards to officespaces, we again offer it onleasehold basis. We have aproject in an IT SEZ of Pune.HSBC is our tenant there.

As a developer, how doyou manage to work on somany projects simultane-ously?In India the presence of thecities itself is huge. Now, ifyou have a presence in morethan one city, you have aself-independent unit to drive

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those projects. So in these 4cities where we develop, wekept a proper, dedicatedteam, starting from the pro-ject’s inception, operations,contracting, executions,sales, and CRM (CustomerRelationship Management).All these units are independ-ent and are running parallel.And we own the secondlargest land bank in Banga-lore. So we need to pace ourprojects in these land bankswell enough.

So if you have these landbanks you need to developthem. The demand is there.The kind of projects we arelaunching are self-sufficienttownships, it has got every-thing inside.

But that doesn’t mean wehave to compromise with thequality of our projects. Whenwe launch a project, we do itwith the aim of selling it to

satisfied customers and en-sure that they get their re-turns.

One of the important rea-sons we have been able tobuild trust is because wehave our own property man-agement company. So alongwith delivering a project, Ihave my team to manage itas well. Typically in India it isthe housing societies (a pop-ular concept in India) thattake care of the properties.We tell them ‘Okay listen, in-stead of you doing it on yourown, let our professional temdo it for you’. Our name is at-tached to this property man-agement unit, who will takecare of your property in amore professional manner inlieu of a service charge. It isdifficult for a housing societyto manage an entire residen-tial township, including theclubhouse, the swimming

Mantri Vantage in Pune

pools and other features.So these kinds of services

have added value to theMantri brand. We do not selljust a 2BHK apartment to ourcustomers, but we help themmaintain it. Maintenance andmanagement is a key. Abuilding which is nice andnew when you are buying itmight be dilapidated in thenext five years, if not man-aged well.

If you do not carefully andprofessionally manage aproperty, you are going tolose out. In India this is a cru-cial factor. This concept of aprivate developer offeringproperty management serv-ices is not there. We havestarted doing this. That is areason that the deliveredprojects of Mantri are stillmanaged so well. If you com-pare us to other developersin this aspect, we have a

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56 Gulf Property

you have equity partners?Is Mantri a stock ex-change-listed enterprise?A few banks are sponsoringare projects. Mantri Develop-ers was a Bombay Stock Ex-change-listed company, but itgot de-listed. We are trying togo public again.

We have tie-ups with multi-ple Indian banks like HDFCBank, ICICI Bank, Axis Bankand financial institutions likePunjab National HousingCorporation, to take care ofthe mortgage needs of ourclients.

How many residentialunits are you deliveringwith these 13 (or more)under-construction proj-ects? What will be the av-erage area of each type ofunit?A total of 10,000 units andthe average area for those

would be 700 to 1000 squarefeet. The residential units wesell start from 2BHK only.

If our estimates are cor-rect, the price for a 2BHKapartment in any ofMantri’s projects start atINR65 lakhs (Dh381,000).This seems like quite a lowprice for a 2BHK apartmentor for that matter any resi-dential unit in India, espe-cially when in the othermetros like Delhi andMumbai the minimumprices for the same areover a crore. What is thereason behind this attrac-tive pricing structure?There is a huge differencebetween the markets of Delhiand Mumbai, when compareto those of the southerncities. The reason is beingBangalore till today is moreof an end-user market. It’s

not a speculative market.Mumbai, being the finan-

cial capital of India has beendriven by speculation. About80 per cent of the people inMumbai cannot afford to livein their own houses. Theyare living on rent. The pricingstructure is driven by specu-lation. Bangalore is the onlyIndian metro city where youcan buy a penthouse for acrore (10 million; Dh585,000)of Indian rupees. You cannotthink of buying such a largeproperty in Mumbai at thatprice.

Bangalore is an end-userdriven market, where a per-son is going to actually livewithin the apartment she/heis buying. Even today a cou-ple, both of whom are aver-age earning softwareprofessionals, can afford tobuy a 2BHK apartment inBangalore. This is the differ-

Mantri Euphoria elevation

plus. This is a thoughtprocess we executed a longtime back.

Today if you, being an NRIhere in Dubai, want torent/sell your apartment inIndia, our brokerage com-pany will assist you in that.Mantri has its own brokeragefirm named ‘Propcare’.

So these are the addedbenefits of buying a Mantriproperty, which other devel-opers do not offer. We helpyou manage your property,find a tenant to help you gainrental yields from your prop-erty, and if after 3 or 5 yearsyou want to sell it, we willhelp you do that as well andensure you get a healthyROI.

What are your othersources of finance? Arethere other banks spon-soring your projects? Do

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7 to 8 towers, takes two anda half to three years for com-pletion. You have a stand-alone building it might comeup within two years. So if Ihave launched a townshipproject in 2014, I will proba-bly be delivering it by 2016-end. It all depends on theproject.

By 2018 all of Mantri’s on-going projects will be deliv-ered. There have beendelays for few of the projectswe have developed in thepast, I wouldn’t deny that.But overall, we have main-tained our deadline.

There are a few developersfrom Bangalore who aretrying to attract investorsfrom Dubai or the GCC asa whole. So are buildersfrom Bangalore like Mantritrying to capitalise on thehigh accommodation

prices of Delhi and Mum-bai, to win over buyers?What makes Bangalore sospecial: Is it just the afford-ability factor?It is not the affordability factoronly. There are various seg-ments of investors that de-velopers target. Typically, ifyou an IT professional de-cides to go back and settledown in India, she/he willlook at three cities which arethe IT hubs of India: Banga-lore, Hyderabad or Pune.The person will mostly thinkabout going back and work-ing in these cities. And in allthese three cities we haveour projects. So that is thereason why we stand to gainfrom our projects.

Yes, the pricing factor isalso crucial. NRIs have viewsthat despite being a metro-politan city, properties inBangalore are still so afford-

ence between Bangaloreand the other markets ofDelhi and Mumbai.

Look, Mantri’s units aredriven by prevalent marketrates and we do not intend toinfluence them. INR65 lakhsis the lowest price a devel-oper can offer for a 2BHK.Yes we do have high-endapartments in the cities wedevelop in.

We have no plans of devel-oping in Mumbai or in north-ern India. We have our landbanks and we are pretty oc-cupied with our projects inthe four cities. Probably wecan look to develop some-thing in Kerala (anothersouthern Indian state). What is the status of con-struction of your ongoingprojects and when do youexpect to deliver them tothe buyers?A typical project, comprising

able, compared to Delhi orMumbai. Bangalore hasbeen rated as the No. 1 cityfor expats in India. So thereis a cosmopolitan nature.Bangalore is a city that iscoming up quite well and it isexpanding.

You have been promotingyour projects to NRIs inthe GCC and elsewhere inthe world through variousmeans, including partici-pating in expos like the In-dian Property Show. Youalso have offices in Singa-pore and in California,apart from Dubai? What isyour general marketingstrategy?First and foremost, our ap-proach is not just to sell prop-erties to NRIs. Rather thantelling them ‘Okay this iswhat I have and you choosefrom it’, we believe we

Mantri Webcity in Bangalore

Sushil Mantri,Chairman andManaging Director,Mantri Developers

58 Gulf Property

Typically a GCC-based anNRI, who has a professionallifespan of 20-25 years, caninvest up to 4 times on realestate.

He will buy a property, getreturns out of it for 4-5 yearsand then sell it off; perhapsthen buy another. So wehave a different strategy. Wefirst ensure that our clientssee us as managing theirwealth. Depending upontheir future plans we advisethem accordingly.

We see ourselves as con-sultants along with being de-velopers. We promisemanagement solutions foryour property, as well as as-sist you with your return oninvestments.

Look, I want to retain you(the customer) and do notwant to get done with youafter one sale. If I do not giveyou a good service today,you will not come back to

me. So I will have to lookafter you till the time you arethere with your investments.

Yes, NRIs in the US have aslightly different mindset, assome of them have acquiredcitizenship there. But theyalso do like to invest in India,as returns on investment inUS real estate is not as highas it is in India. The propertymarket in India is growing by8 to 10 per cent. Besidescapital appreciation in Indiais also quite high.

How has been the re-sponse so far for Mantri’sprojects, both back homein India and here in Dubai?The preferences of the mid-dle class in India havechanged considerably in thelast seven to eight years.That is because the middleclass income has gone upand the spending capacity ishigh now. Most couples are

now working. So do they ex-pect good standards of living.

And in the north of Banga-lore, you will find a lot of ex-pats living. The reason beingthat there are a lot of interna-tional schools, the malls arearound and their workplacesare within the residentialcommunities only.

Hence we have come upwith various schemes, one ofwhich is where you pay 10per cent now, pay nothing forthe next three years; if youwant to take a loan we will or-ganise one for you from ourbanking partner and theywould disburse 60 per centof the money and they willtake 10 per cent from you.

You don’t have to pay thepre-EMIs until possession ofyour property. So you are ac-tually buying an apartmentby paying just 10 per cent ofthe total amount initially.Then you just forget about

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should educate them onwhat exactly they should buy.I tell my clients to think aboutthe next 5 years. If they de-cide to move back to India bythen, I suggest them to buyan off-plan kind of a property,because by the time they re-locate, the property would beready and they will get to livein it. If my client is planning tobuy property as an invest-ment, I suggest them to buyin a newly-launched project.With a AAA rated developerlike Mantri, the buyers’money is safe.

There are a lot of Banga-lore-based developers whoare selling in Dubai and theGCC. They have embarkedon an aggressive marketingcampaign and there is stiffcompetition. We know onething for sure: Wherever inthe world an Indian is, she/hewill always have a propertyback home.

Mantri Serene view from the lake

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returns. So five years is anideal period. The benefitsfrom your investmentsshould be real to you.

So the time invested alongwith the money has comedown to 3-5 years. Earlier In-dians used to keep their in-vestments for 7-10 years oreven more, because theyhad more of an emotional at-tachment to it. NRIs havechanged their mindsetsshifted from an emotionalperspective to an investmentperspective, which is whatthey should do.

As far as internationalsales are concerned, Dubaihas always been good for us.We have been here for 9years now. We have beendoing extremely well. Thetrust our investors have in ushas helped us operateabroad for so long. I have es-tablished 3 internationalsales centre.

We are here (in Dubai) be-cause of our trust; I havearound 600 satisfied cus-tomers only in Dubai. If Iwere to talk about the entireGCC, I have a total of around1,700 customers. I have an-other 480 customers in Sin-gapore. We have another100 odd customers in SanJose alone.

Besides we try to make itconvenient for our clients byarranging for the loans hereitself. My team here canarrange everything for you;all you have to do is to cometo our office.

We are growing. We needto be close to where theNRIs are. Till now NRIs havenot been attracted to investback home because thingswere very unorganised. Youdid have a developer comingto you with a nice picture ofan apartment. I mean it mightbe a very good apartment, in

the apartment for the nextthree years.

Also, the apartment thatyou are buying today willalso appreciate in valuewithin those three interimyears. So even if you arebuying an apartment worth80 lakhs now by paying 8lakhs now (10 per cent of it),taking a conservative ap-proach, you will still receive acapital appreciation of atleast 20 per cent, raisingyour property;s value to 96lakhs. So you are increasingyour returns.

Such schemes are goodfor NRIs. I myself am an NRI.Dealing with properties is mypassion so I invest a lot inIndia. So I say you shouldknow how to exit out of yourinvestment also. If you main-tain that investment for along period, say 10 years, itwill only grow on paper. Youshould actually achieve the

India there are numeroussuch fancy properties. Butthe key for a developer is tobe with the investor till thetime they exit our of their in-vestment. You should beable to guide them till theyare satisfied.

Mantri did try to launch aproject here in Dubai, butquit the project for obviousreasons. What happenedback then? Would makeanother attempt now thatthe Dubai market is notjust booming but mature?It all depends on Mr. SushilMantri. It all depends onwhat he decides. PresentlyMantri is occupied develop-ing its projects in India. Iwould say developing a proj-ect here in Dubai will takesome time, but yes we mightconsider that option later;say four to five years downthe line. g

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Mantri Lithos