Raymond Forays Into Real Estate With Housing Project In Thane

Raymond Ltd. announced its foray into real estate development with a 20-acre residential project in Thane as it looks to monetise land parcels it owns.

“We will become the most preferred real estate developer in this market,” Gautam Singhania, chairman of Raymond Group, told BloombergQuint on the sidelines of the project launch. The group holds 120 acres in Thane district, outside Mumbai.

The project, called “Aspirational District”, will have a total of 3,000 units across ten towers, the company said in a statement. In the first phase three towers will have two-bedroom houses in two configurations—515 square feet flats an all-inclusive price of Rs 1.06-1.2 crore and 640 sq ft flats for Rs 1.35-1.52 crore.

“We have another 3 acres earmarked for premium housing,” said K Mukund Raj, chief executive officer of Raymond Realty. The four-bedroom apartments of 2,300 sq ft each will be launched at the end of second quarter in fiscal 2019, he said.

The project, which is expected to be completed in five years, will cost an estimated Rs 250 crore, with over 65 percent of which has already been spent. "Going forward, we will have our revenues with all the sales happening and customer collections, that is going to be funding the rest of the project,” Raj said. “We will not be needing anything beyond the maximum of Rs 250 crore that we have looked at.”

The company expects sales of Rs 3,500 crore at 25 percent profit margin from its first phase over five years.