Mahindra unit to acquire ₹500-cr. land every year

Realty arm eyes mid-premium homes

Mahindra Lifespace Developers Ltd., the realty arm of the Mahindra Group, will invest ₹500 crore in land acquisition every year to expand the firm’s affordable and mid-premium housing projects, said MD & CEO Arvind Subramanian.

“Most of the investment over the next three to five years will go into the residential business,” he said.

“Roughly, every year, we will be be spending about ₹500 crore on land acquisitions… if I stick to three to five land parcels being bought,” he added.

The company, which operates its affordable-housing business under the brand name Happinest (prices range from ₹10 to ₹50 lakh) and mid-premium or premium residential business (₹50 lakh-₹4 crore) under the Lifespaces umbrella, said demand for homes in these segments would rise as end users desired to move to better homes.

As per the new strategy, the firm from a residential perspective, would primarily focus on Mumbai, Pune and Bengaluru markets as against the seven cities it is currently present.

“We believe density is more important than spread,” said Mr. Subramanian. “We would like to go deeper into these three markets, before we spread out. We will do developments which we can complete within about four to five years and keep doing multiple developments in the same locality,” he said.

In the last two years, sales had been hovering between ₹800-₹1,000 crore a year and in about four years, it had planned to achieve a target of ₹2,500 crore. And the next leap would be to get into the ₹5,000-crore league, he added.

“We are aiming for almost a threefold increase in the next four years. And we’ve been gearing up both the organisation as well as our land and other resources in line with that. We have beefed up the organisation quite significantly,” Mr. Subramanian said.

To scale up the business, the company has strengthened its leadership team. It has brought in a new chief sales officer, a new chief marketing officer, a new CFO and a new head of construction.

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