Real estate bull on a new path

New Delhi, May 30 (UNI) Moving into unchartered territories, DLF India makes a foray into the Life Insurance category in a joint venture (JV) with Prudential to develop, promote, market and sell life insurance.

Speaking on the announcment of the issue of its IPO today, Director DLF Pia Singh said, ''Life insurance will add another dimension to our business. Our affiliation with a global financial leader will give us a good exposure to the financial and treasury aspect of business.'' The much awaited IPO saw the company announce its ambitious plans which has made a divergence from the Gurgaon-centric view to a pan-India vision.

DLF has plans to develop multi-product SEZ and sector specific SEZs. It plans to develop each SEZ as an integrated township. One ITSEZ in Chennai has already been notified while two ITSEZ in Gurgaon and one each in Pune and Hyderabad are in diffrent stages of approval.

''The SEZ is a relative new concept and although it is a miniscule percentage of our business, we are making a foray into it in a big way. This will certainly be the segment to watch out for,'' Ms Singh told UNI.

To benefit from the tourism boom happening in the country, the company has entered into a JV with the Hilton Group to develop luxury hotels, business hotels and service apartments. DLF plans to open 90-100 hotels across the metro cities of India.

To enjoy the benefit of synergies, DLF has entered into JV with the UK construction and property engineering giant, the WSP Group.

It has also engaged UK-based Laing O'Rourke, the largest privately owned construction firm in the UK.

The DLF and Nakheel 50:50 JV to develop a total 40,000 acres between Gurgaon and South Maharashtra, Goa at an initial investment of 10 billion dollar is one of the largest realty construction being undertaken.

After Unitech's foray into the construction of Metro, Ms Singh said her company is actively looking at the prospect and evaluating the metro projects.

UNI