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MOSL: THE CORNER OFFICE (BIRLA ESTATES) — A great time for large developers with legacy brands

THE CORNER OFFICE (Birla Estates) — A great time for large developers with legacy brands

 

Mr. KT Jithendran, Chief Executive Officer

He has over 26 years of work experience. With his thoughtful leadership, he propelled a start-up real estate company to become one of the leading players in the category. Prior to joining Birla Estates, he was Executive Director of Godrej Properties Limited (GPL) and Director on the board of Godrej Properties. He has led most functions within the company while managing growth as well as building a strong talent team.

He has done his Civil Engineering from IIT Kharagpur, Post Graduate Diploma in Management from IIM Kolkata and Advanced Management Program from Harvard Business School. 

We met Mr. KT Jithendran, the Chief Executive Officer of Birla Estates (real estate arm of Century Textiles), who spoke at length about Birla Estates’ (BE) key assets, its strategy on building portfolio and trends in the Indian real estate sector. Key takeaways:

• Consumers are sitting on the fence awaiting a price correction given the current slowdown. But, persistent increase in raw material prices, like steel and cement (where higher GST is an overhang) and rising cost of borrowings makes it challenging for developers to reduce prices.
• According to Mr. Jithendran, it’s a great time for developers with legacy brands as many developers are approaching them to execute projects on JD models. However, developers need to exercise caution while evaluating projects and not rush in. Additionally, projects have to be priced right keeping in mind its size; ultra-luxury projects will have fewer takers in the current environment. He cautions that tie-ups with developers based out of tier-2, tier-3 cities are likely to be more risky in the current environment.
• In order to deal with struggling developers, the government can direct financial institutions to use a DM model approach, wherein such developers can execute and sell the project for a DM fee.