Track2Realty-Agencies: After making her foray into cricket with IPL Rajasthan team, Shilpa Shetty is once again entering a field dominated by men – real estate development. The actor has launched a company, Groupco Developers, in partnership with her friend and first generation entrepreneur Hem Tejuja, to develop housing projects in collaboration with land owners across the country.
“Whether it is an ad or a business it must be something I believe in. I cannot do something simply for the money. It must connect with me because I want to be a catalyst to make people’s lives happier,” says Shetty who already counts health and wellness, sports and entertainment in her business portfolio.
What connects her to the new business is her emotional connect with the middle-class and people’s aspiration to own a home.
“I have been very fortunate that I can afford certain things today, but deep down I am still a middle class person from Chembur and therefore I can connect with people’s dream of owning a decent house that is affordable,” she says.
The elegant dancer from Mangalore, who shot into international fame when she won the British reality show Big Brother in 2007, is a regular fix at the IPL matches of Rajasthan Royals team that she and her husband Raj Kundra own. Known more for her body, health and fitness, Shetty has already demonstrated her business acumen by running a chain of spas, monetising power yoga, and even launching a portal for group buying in the real estate sector.
Shetty has clearly come a long way from her days as a commerce student at Mumbai’s Poddar College when she thought her subject did not have much applicability in life. “I would ask my dad how trigonometry’s cosec and cosine would ever apply to my life? I guess it was destiny that after being an actor, I eventually became a businesswoman, which I think is what I was meant to do,” she says.
Groupco Developers is a 50-50 joint venture between Shetty and Tejuja, who is also a partner in her online property brokerage business. Shetty holds her stake through Kundra Constructions, a joint venture between her and husband Raj Kundra.
She is the chairperson of the company, which will follow an asset-light model wherein it will form alliances with local developers on revenue share basis, but keep majority stake with itself.
Tejuja, Managing Director of Groupco Developers, says a special project vehicle will be formed for each project. “Our local partner will be responsible for land parcels and approvals while Groupco Developers will execute the project and also market the same,” he says.
The first two projects will come up in Navi Mumbai and the ancient port city of Lothal (near Sanand) in Gujarat. It targets a revenue of nearly Rs 700 crore in the next three years through residential projects with total saleable area of around 1 million sq ft in Navi Mumbai and 150 acre project at Lothal.
Its Navi Mumbai portfolio includes a 75,000 sq ft project in Taloja, and another one in Kharghar with 60,000 sq ft saleable space.
Groupco is in talks to form alliances for three more projects in Mumbai Metropolitan Region and is looking for projects in Pune and Gurgaon.
