September 2013
THE INDIA REPORT 2013 | PERE
Talk to any non-domestic group that deployed capital into the Indian real estate market in 2005 or 2006, when FDI was first allowed into all property types beyond hospitality and the discussion will soon turn to how wild a time that was. The team at Portman Holdings is no exception. Chief executive officer Ambrish Baisiwala shakes his head as he recollects a period where both the givers and takers of that capital expected much but realised much less.
“Indian developers in 2005 and 2006 saw the foreign capital inflows as nothing more than easy money, and that influx ended up hurting everybody.” he comments, “Almost everyone who went into India in that period learnt a lot and some – the majority in my view – got turned off whilst others stood back and said let’s use these learnings.”
For Portman, who are active in both the Chinese and Indian markets with teams sat in Shanghai and Mumbai, those learnings have helped refine a strategy that started in 1998 when the group set up its architectural practice in Mumbai.
See PERE Magazine’s full storyhere.
