Construction major Sobha Group to float IPO by year end

Bangalore, July 5 (UNI) The South based construction major Sobha Group will, by this year end, go in for an IPO through a 100 per cent book building route to fund its expansion plans.

With a turnover of over Rs 800 crore, the Group with a backward integration model has 29 ongoing projects and last year completed eight million sq feet of residential and corporate space.

With nearly 30 per cent of its revenue coming through the Corporate route, the Company is all set to expand to other cities, Jackbastian K Nazareth, Group Director for marketing, sales and Company Affairs told a visiting UNI correspondent at Vadakkenchery near Palghat in Kerala.

Mr Nazareth said the process of preparing the draft prospectus for the IPO was in final stages and would be submitted to SEBI soon.

He said the size of the IPO was yet to be finalised.

He said only a few real estate houses had successfully tapped the capital market.

He said the real estate boom in the country would witness a new growth trajectory with the FDI being allowed in real estate by the Government and also opening up of mutual funds to look at real estate properties.

Mr Nazareth said the Group, which had been building flats predominantly in Bangalore, would soon spread to Kerala where it had identified property in Kochi and Trichur for a major housing project. Similarly it would also start construction in Mysore in Karnataka besides other cities such as Delhi, Pune, Hyderabad and Chennai. ''We will be present in 13 cities shortly'' he added.

Perhaps one of the few builders to have backward integration, Sobha Group had factories for woodwork, glazed tiles and hollow blocks. Mr Mazareth said that over a period of time, these units would become income generating ones on their own selling surplus materials. It had recently installed a German machine in its unit in Bangalore where 20,000 Hollow blocks could be produced in a day.

Sri Kurtumba Trust a charitable trust founded by Sobha Group Chairman P N C Menon has come up with a charitable home for aged at Vadakkencherry to help aged couple who have no known source of income live a decent life. Called the 'Sobha Hermitage', the old-age home had 55 rooms of which 50 would be provided to the deserving couple. Nearly 60 per cent of it would be provided free Trust Chairman V K Balan told newsmen. The project on completion would cost Rs 13 crores, he added. The monthly recurring expenditure would be around Rs 1.3 crore. Besides the old age home, a Poly clinic and a school was also being built in a 25 acre, area he added.

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