ASK Property closes Rs1000 crore realty fund

Real estate private equity arm of ASK group, ASK Property Investment Advisors, announced the successful closure of its second real estate fund – ‘ASK Real Estate Opportunities Fund’. The fund has successfully raised Rs1000 crore. The significantly large corpus raised by this fund is in sharp contrast to the fundraising constraints witnessed by real estate fund industry and is possibly the highest amount raised domestically by any real estate fund over the last four to five years.

Sunil Rohokale, MD&CEO of ASK Investment Holdings said, “In spite of tough economic conditions ASK has managed to leverage its strong relationships with clients who have yet again reposed their faith in the group. Majority of our investors have been repeat investors from our first fund who have experienced our strategy and our performance.”

“The current environment provides excellent countercyclical opportunities. This opportunity, combined with focused strategy of mid segment housing in top five cities, in partnership with prudent and reputed developers will help us in providing superior risk adjusted returns.

Our first exit is a clear indicator of our potentially sound investment track record” said Amit Bhagat, MD & CEO, ASK Property Investment Advisors. ASK Property investment Advisors (ASKPIA) has managed to record a significant performance in its investments made so far. In March 2012, the company announced its first exit in Noida at a staggering IRR of 54 per cent with a multiple of 2.45.

With this close ASK will have AUM of over Rs1300 crore, making it one of the leading real estate funds with significant capital ready for deployment in the liquidity starved real estate market. The maiden fund of Rs326 crore raised in 2009-10 has been fully deployed in seven investments in four cities. In line with its strategy, the ASK Group has partnered with reputed developers including ATS Infrastructure in Noida, Paranjape Schemes, Amit Enterprises and Darode Jog in Pune, Sushil Mantri Group in Bengaluru, Real Value in Chennai and Rajesh Builders in Mumbai.

In March 2012, ASK Property announced investment from their second fund in Mumbai by forming a partnership through a 49 per cent stake with Godrej Projects Development (GPDPL) for a redevelopment project in Sahakar Nagar at Chembur. This project is worth over Rs700 crore and ASK funds have invested close to Rs100 crore in this project.

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