Middle income group cuts spending by 65%: ASSOCHAM

High food inflation has forced Indian households in the middle and lower income groups to slash their spending on entertainment, shopping, vacations, electronics, automobiles, real estate and eating out by 65% in attempt to manage their monthly household budgets, said a recent survey by apex industry body The Associated Chamber of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM).

High interest rates and fuel costs also contributed the the middle income group (MIG) decision on curtailing their spends in the last 6 months. With food and education of children eat up most of their incomes, saving are likely to be impacted revealed the ASSOCHAM survey.

Conducted in a period of two months beginning March to April 2012 in major places like Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Hyderabd, Pune, Chandigarh, Dehradun etc, A little over 200 employees were chosen from each city on an average for the survey. 

"While the Indian national capital Delhi ranked first in curtailing their expenses, the Indian commercial capital Mumbai came second followed by Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Kolkata, Chennai and Dehradun," said D S Rawat, secretary general ASSOCHAM.

The nationwide survey also ascertained that food inflation impacted the most consumers in metros and other major cities Vis-à-vis tier-III and semi-urban area due to sudden hike in the fruits, vegetables and milk prices. It added that the rise in inflation and per capita income was utterly disproportionate.

Around 55% of the survey respondents fall under the age bracket of 20-29 years, followed by 30-39 years (26%), 40-49 years (16%), 50-59 years (2%) and 60-65 years.

The survey targeted employees from 18 broad sectors, with maximum share contributed by employees from IT/ITes sector (17%) followed by financial services (11%), employees working in engineering and telecom sector (9% and 8% respectively). Nearly 6% of the employees belonged to market research/KPO and media background each while 5% each were management, FMCG and infrastructure sector employees. Respondents from power and real estate sector contributed 4% each. Employees from education and food & beverages sector provided a share of 3% each.

Consumers' growing unease is reflected in their saving rate and spending habits, with many middle income and lower income group indicating that they are finding ways to cut back spending now or indicating they will do so in the future. Around 69% of the respondents have cut down in their saving rate.

Nearly half of middle income group either avoid shopping altogether or shop only for those things that are absolutely needed. Moreover, 76% said that their shopping has been restricted to only necessities and splurge in their spending is totally occasional.

About 88% of respondent said that they have cut back on everyday expenses by avoiding outside food, car-pooling, cutting down on gas and use of electricity.

The survey also revealed that the high income groups, particularly the younger lot and working couples with twin salary benefits during every weekend spend more than 25% of their income on clothes, shoes, movies, buying CDs of films and music, eating out, etc.

The Chamber also estimates that inflation has also impacted the urban male and females personal expenses. The urban male used to spend Rs 500-2,000 per month on drinks, cigarettes, gutkha, pan etc. which has come down by 20% due to upward inflation. On the other side, urban women now spend around Rs 500-1000 per month on cosmetics, beauty treatments etc which was earlier Rs 1500-2,000.

Over 87% of the respondent said that monthly grocery bills have jumped to about Rs 7,000 to 8,000, compared to Rs 3,000 in the last two years. “Earlier they could buy a bag full of vegetables for Rs 100 but now, even Rs 1,000 isn't enough to sustain for a couple of days. The middle class and the lower class are the worst hit,” the report said.

One in four respondents said they will work towards increasing their income to stay financially afloat by switching to a better-paid job, taking a second job option or working overtime hours.

Commenting on the overall scenario and possible measures to be taken, Rawat said, “The government must look to manage its wasteful expenditure by enforcing austerity drive so as to reduce its borrowing from the markets which will ultimately have soothing effect on interest rate there by providing some relief on inflation.”

Nearly 78% of the respondent said that they have cut back on protein intake like eggs, have switched to a coarser rice that costs less, consumes less cooking oil, uses the less washing powder for utensils and for clothes and also stopped using the cosmetic things.

Eighty-six percent of the respondents said that they cannot predict their monthly household expenses for next month owing to unpredictable prices of not only commodities but also vegetables, fruits, milk, pulses and other household items.

Over 87% of vegetarians said that they face even more problems due to steep increase in prices of vegetables and fruits and worried of lower intake of vegetables and may affect health of their family. The survey also found that low-income groups (LIG) are increasingly cutting back on the nutrient-rich snacks because they can no longer afford them.

Rawat further said that all this leads to a spiralling effect as it becomes more difficult for poor people to improve their conditions and lead a life where they are not devoid of basic amenities.

Highlights of ASSOCHAM survey:

 - Average monthly expenditure has increased from Rs. 2,000 to Rs.6,000. More importantly, food expenditure as a percentage of monthly household expenditure has gone up from 40% to 100%.

 - Consumption of individual food items show a significant reduction as well, particularly in case of rice, wheat, yellow daal, onion, tomato, butter, milk, sugar and fruits and vegetables, the number of households consuming milk at least twice a day.

 - The growing food budget has invariably led households to cut costs in other areas such as healthcare and transportation.

 - Over 75% of the surveyed households now go to government hospitals or doctors instead of private doctors or hospitals.

 - 78% have decreased spending on eating out and rest preferred on occasions.

 - 65% decrease in the amount they spend on clothing.

 - 77% indicated fall in the amount they spend on vacations.

 - 49% have decreased the amount they spend on home appliances; 44% for home and personal electronics; 42% for automobiles; and 35% for real estate.

Mahindra Holidays' Q4'12 net down 7.3%

Leisure hospitality provider Mahindra Holidays and Resorts India Ltd (MHRIL) registered a 7.3% decline  (on stand-alone basis) in net profit after tax (PAT) for the quarter ended March 31, 2012. Part of the $14.4 billion Mahindra Group, MHRIL posted a net profit of Rs 37.23 crore in the fourth quarter of financial year 2012 (Q4'12) against Rs 40.18 crore in the same period last year (Q4'11).

On a consolidated basis, the company's PAT increased by 1.8% from Rs 102.76 crore in the financial year 2011 (FY'11) to Rs 104.64 crore in fiscal ended March 31, 2012.

Rajiv Sawhney, managing director, MHRIL, the company’s growth is in line with the expectations and is a result of aggressive investing in process, people and technology. He did not share details about capital expenditure (capex) earmarked for FY’13 or the development pipeline in terms of number of new resorts and guest rooms to be added to the network citing company policy on not making forward looking statements.

“We are strengthening our customer-centric efforts and have launched aN online booking facility on our website last year in November. With approximately 13% of all bookings being done online now, we expect the number to increase significantly in the next 12 months,” said Sawhney.

The company’s total income increased 19% to Rs 188 crore in Q4FY12 vis-a-vis Rs 165.78 crore in the same period last year. Its total expenses increased by 27% from Rs 111.67 crore in Q4’11 to Rs 142.13 crore in Q4’12.

Continuing with its expansion, the company increased its resort network to 42 from 35 in the previous financial year. With the addition of 485, its room inventory increased by 31% rooms taking the overall figure to 2,049 rooms in FY’12.

Three small resorts that were on a short lease were taken off the network. The company acquired 18,089 new members registering a 14% increase in membership base taking the total to 143,258 – the membership base in FY’11 was 125,169.

Arun Nanda, chairman, MHRIL, said the company is putting a lot of emphasis on strengthening their services, network and technology infrastructure. To this effect, 10 destinations were added to the network including Sikkim, Mussorie, Mahableshwar, Kumarakom, Jaisalmer, Kanatal, Goa and Rishikesh.

India's first Tune hotel coming up in Ahmedabad

Ahmedabad-based Mudra Real Estates Pvt Ltd (MREPL) has entered into a long-term lease agreement with Apodis Hotels & Resorts Ltd for an under-construction hotel project at '4 D Square Mall' Motera, Ahmedabad. Scheduled to start operations by early 2013, the property will be christened 'Tune Hotel @ Ahmedabad'

The 100-room hotel will be managed by the Indian joint venture company between Apodis and Tune Hotels of Malaysia. Targeted at the budget accommodation segment, Tune Hotels are currently operational in Malaysia, United Kingdom, Indonesia, Thailand and Philippines.

Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels acted as an exclusive advisor to the owner/lessor (MREPL) to facilitate this lease transaction including selection of the lease partner and negotiating the lease on behalf of the owners.

A pan India hotel development company promoted by PRAMA Group and assisted by IL&FS Investment Managers, Apodis Hotels & Resorts Ltd had (in 2009) entered into to a master franchise agreement with Malaysian budget hotel chain Tune Hotels.com to launch ‘Tune’ hotels in India. Part of real estate and infrastructure investment firm Trikona Capital, Apodis was instituted to operate, develop and invest in hospitality assets in the leisure, business class and low-cost segments in the country.

During an earlier interaction back in September 2009, Umesh Luthria, business head and chief investment officer, AHC, had said the company was negotiating for six sites across Mumbai in addition to pursuing locations in the country’s southern and northern regions.

In the ensuing three years, Apodis was to invest to the tune of $200 million for the first 20 properties in a debt to equity ratio of 60:40. The company was planning to have close to 2,000 rooms in cities such as Mumbai and Delhi, around 1,000 rooms in Hyderabad, Chennai and Bangalore. “The smaller markets will have between 200 and 500 rooms,” Luthria had said then.

Apodis is targeting 20 Tune hotels across tier I, II and III Indian cities and after testing the market with this budget hotel product, Apodis-Tune joint venture was to launch an India Thematic Development Fund in the second phase. While the size and time-frame for the launch of this fund was not made public, the money thus raised was to be utilised to pursue development of another 50 Tune hotels across the country.

The arrangement between the Apodis-Tune is such that while Apodis will own / lease the hotel assets Tune Hotels.com will be their branding partner. The management of these hotels will be handled by a separate company under the banner Tune Hotels India Ltd (THIL). Besides managing the hotels, THIL’s scope of work would include handling technical and development services and project management consultancy.

Apodis has already worked out the structure of their upcoming hotels in the Tier I, II and III cities in the country. The company will ideally look to set up a 250-300 room hotel in the key metros, followed by 150-200 keys and 100-150 keys in the next tow layers respectively.

“These will be a completely new breed of hotels designed keeping in mind the Asian customers’ requirement of a value for money (VFM) proposition. The USP is non-dependency on expensive technology and processes that come with hotel out of the APAC region. The average gross floor area (GFA) per key will be 30 square meters including the washroom area. The cost per key will depend on the location in the range of $30,000 to $100,000 i.e. Rs 14 lakh to Rs 45 lakh including land cost,” Luthria had said.

Though positioned as a budget hotel brand, Tune sees itself competing with the likes of three- to five-star category hotels across the markets it intends to operate in. Among potential locations being identified include cities like Amritsar, Bangalore, Chandigarh, Chennai, Delhi, Goa, Hyderabad, Indore, Jodhpur, Kochi, Mumbai, Pune, Pipavav, Raipur, Thiruvananthapuram and Tiruchirapally.

Focusing heavily on optimising costs, the hotels will have a very efficient room to staff ratio. While provisions for food and beverage, meetings and banqueting facilities will be part of the design plan, these will be largely outsourced to third-party operators that will further enhance the hotels cash flow thereby increasing profitability.

Update on May 16, 2013.

Air Asia promoter Tune Group launches first hotel in India

Lifestyle business conglomerate Tune Group (also a substantial shareholder of AirAsia via Tune Air) has opened its first hotel in India. It's hospitality vertical Tune Hotels began receiving guests at its 100-room property located in Ahmedabad that offered pre-opening promotional room rates starting from Rs 599 ($11). Catering to both domestic travellers and overseas visitors, especially members of the large non-resident Indian (NRI) community from Gujarat settled in places like the US, Britain and the Gulf, Tune Hotels will have five to six hotels in Gujarat as part of the company’s 20 planned hotels across India in the next three years. Besides properties in major cities – Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai – Tune Hotels is focusing on Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities along with hotels in the tourist triangle destinations of Agra, Jaipur and Delhi.

Birds Eye Systems' Traffline facilitates tracking traffic real-time

Traffic congestion has been and currently still is the biggest problem faced by people living in key Indian metros. While most people only crib about it and forget about it as routine, Brijraj Vaghani and Ravi Khemani, co-founders of Mumbai-based Birds Eye Systems (BES) have decided to do something about it.

Backed with recent funding from Indian Angels Network (IAN) and significant work experience with wireless and internet companies in the US, the duo have launched a unique product called Traffline, which is a low-cost, real-time traffic monitoring system that broadcasts live traffic conditions to road commuters using its patented technology. The company also provides software and mobile applications, for transport related applications.

According to Brijraj Vaghani, users can download traffic related information from their online platform (www.traffline.com) and plan / optimise their road journey accordingly. “Real-time traffic monitoring is very common in the US but is not something done very seriously in India as yet as it is perceived to be very capital intensive. Taking the partnership approach, we collect raw data from various entities that use global positioning system (GPS) for their businesses. Using a patented algorithm, the data is then compiled to offer real-time traffic updates. This information is very useful to road commuters, traffic police, emergency service providers and infrastructure and city planning agencies,” said Vaghani.

Launched early this year, Traffline is currently available in cities like Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore and claims to have nearly 1,000 visitors a day. The company had also launched a taxi booking service in September 2011 thereby building a user base of 15,000. In the coming few quarters BES will add more cities and taxi service providers to its network.

“We are planning integrate additional external sources with the Traffline platform and offer wider coverage. We will shortly start offering customised solutions to map providers that they can use to value add their products. The logistics companies will benefit from historical data on traffic patterns to plan their routing better,” said Khemani.

For people on the move, the company has also launched a mobile version of the website (www.m.traffline.com) there by allowing users to avail real time traffic information on their handsets. For Android and iPhone users, a mobile application (beta) has been developed and is available for downloads. An advanced version of this mobile app with integrated social networking will be introduced in the coming months.

Built on a platform that continuously analyses live vehicle movement and displays results on Traffline.com, the results are also made available in an easy to read text format on the mobile version. The service is currently free of charge for both web and mobile versions though the company is likely to unveil paid versions in the coming months.

Analysts see Ertiga driving Maruti

This story first appeared in DNA Money edition on Saturday, April 14, 2012.

Ertiga, the newest offering from the Maruti Suzuki stable that aims to create a new segment within the multi-purpose vehicle (MPV) space, has got a huge thumbs-up from analysts.

They feel with Ertiga, the company has a strong product in terms of value of money, design, mileage and pricing, which would give it a strong footing in the 370,000 unit per annum utility vehicle (UV) market, where it did not have a presence. With an attractive introductory price proposition (Rs589,000 -845,000), Ertiga poses a challenge to current leaders Toyota’s Innova (starting price: Rs914,000) and M&M’s Xylo (starting price: Rs734,000).

Toyota and M&M have a combined volume of 9,000 units per month. While Maruti is targeting 4,000-5,000 units per month, analysts see it selling 2,000-3,000 units.

Kaushal Maroo and Keyur Vora, analysts, Religare Capital Markets, said, “The Ertiga will occupy a niche between premium hatchbacks and larger utility vehicles. Given its brand equity and reach, we expect the Ertiga to clock a monthly run-rate of 3,000 units.”

MPVs accounts for 10% of the total passenger vehicle market and in the past three years have outpaced car volume growth. According to industry estimates, about 10 million vehicle owners are looking for an upgrade, which spells a huge opportunity for Ertiga.

Hitesh Goel, analyst, Kotak Institutional Equities Research, said, “It could be attractive for a customer who is buying Xylo, Sumo Grande and Tavera as it is more compact and offers better value than these models (better fuel efficiency and lower price). However, Ertiga is under-powered compared with Xylo and Innova.”

Maruti is looking to differentiate the vehicle on two counts—its sedan-like handling, better driveability and fuel efficiency —16.02 / 20.77kmpl for petrol/diesel variants.

Jatin Chawla and Akshay Saxena, research analysts, Credit Suisse, said, “The Ertiga is around 30% lighter than the Xylo. Hence, despite its significantly smaller 1.3 litre diesel engine than Xylo’s 2.5 litre engine, the differences in power and torque are not as significant. Moreover, the Ertiga is built on a monocoque design (like the XUV), compared to a body on a frame chassis in the Xylo. Hence, the handling is much better, which should appeal to the personal segment.”

However, the competition would follow soon.

While Renault is introducing compact SUV Duster, Ford is bringing in the EcoSport, Nissan is coming with Evalia, M&M mini Xylo and GM is planning a new MPV.

“These products are likely to be priced between Rs 600,000 and Rs 10,00,000,” said Aditya Makharia and Ritesh Gupta, analysts, JPMorgan.

Deepak Jain, equity research, MF Global, said a number of compact MPVs are to be launched this fiscal but the Ertiga’s launch provides Maruti a head-start.

Meanwhile, Maruti will start exporting Ertiga to Indonesia by end of the next month.

Fund-short hotels find it hard to come up

An edited version of this story first appeared in DNA Money edition on Thursday, April 12, 2012.

India’s largest realty firm DLF Ltd bought out its joint venture (JV) partner Hilton for Rs 120 crore in December 2011. Instituted in 2006-7, the DLF Hotels & Hospitality Ltd (JV firm), was to set up 75 hotels across the country. The transaction, according to DLF spokesperson, was done to take complete ownership of the JV and its underlying assets including incomplete hotel sites with a view to monetise them. “This is part of DLF's ongoing strategy to divest non-core assets," the spokesperson had said.

Similarly, in June 2007, another leading realtor Emaar MGF had announced 50:50 JV with Premier Inn, a subsidiary of UK’s largest hospitality company Whitbread PLC. The JV was targeting to develop and operate 80 limited services hotels across India under the brand Premier Inn over next 10 years with an investment of up to $600 million. However, with Emaar MGF running into its own set of financial troubles, Premier Inn bought out their stake in the JV and is now pursuing expansion on its own.

Taking just the two instances into account, approximately 150 hotels or 15,000 guest rooms (assuming each hotel had 100 keys) have gone out of the Indian hospitality development pipeline. Financial hurdle in pursuing the developments was that one common factor with both the fiascoes.

 

Commenting on the situation, Aly Shariff, managing director, Premier Inn India P Ltd, said, ”The JV partner (Emaar MGF) had a change in their overall business strategy, as a result we decided to buy them out thereby holding 100% of the company.” The UK’s largest hotel chain has significantly scaled down its plans and will now expand on its own. The hotel chain is now targeting an overall guestroom inventory of over 650 in the next 3 years including the 200 plus already operational hotel rooms across Delhi and Bangalore. Going forward, the company will adopt asset light strategy (management contracts) to expand in the Indian hospitality market.

A white paper released by global hospitality consulting and services firm HVS in collaboration with World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) recently, said India will need overall investment to the tune of $25.5 billion for constructing 180,000 additional hotel rooms in the next decade from now i.e. 2012.

However, HVS also feels that challenges related to sourcing capital for these hotels will impact the overall development pipeline.

Kaushik Vardharajan, managing director, HVS Hospitality Services India, said, “There will be a shortfall in the overall projected additional supply of 1.88 lakh hotel rooms in the next seven to 10 years and we are of the opinion that only 60% of these guest rooms will actually get constructed within the stipulated time frame.”

Leading hospitality firms and financial institutions operating in the Indian market, are in agreement with the fact that non-availability of capital and or lack of funding options are significantly impacting hotel developments in the country.

At a recently concluded hotel investment conference (HICSA 2012), at Grand Hyatt Hotel in Mumbai, erstwhile CEO of IDFC Private Equity Luis Miranda, said while there is significant demand for funds in the Indian hospitality sector there aren’t enough sources.

“If the project and the investment are priced properly I think money will come. However, hospitality assets tend to be so expensive in India that it just doesn’t make sense for investors to invest,” he said. Miranda is currently advisor to SilverNeedle Hospitality which is part of the Nadathur Group, an investment firm owned by Nadathur S Raghavan and family, co-founder of NASDAQ-listed Infosys Technologies.

Miranda’s concerns were echoed by other HICSA 2012 panel discussion participants including Navneet Bali, chief investment officer, Duet India Hotels, Peter Meyer, managing director, Pacifica Partners, Sandeep Kotak, executive vice president, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Vijay Jayaraman, senior vice president, Equity International.

Akshay Kulkarni, executive director - SA, Cushman and Wakefield Hospitality, feels while companies are looking to expand, their single most important concern is funding it. “A majority of the hotel companies operating in the country are in agreement of the fact that there isn’t enough capital to build all the hotel rooms being talked about,” said Kulkarni.

The severity of the problem is evident from the fact that, companies that raised money in the past and over-leveraged their balance sheets are now left with not much option but to sell some of their existing assets.

For instance, the home grown luxury hotel chain Leela Palaces Hotels & Resorts had sold its Kovalam hotel for Rs 500 crore while retaining management contract. The BSE-listed company is considering similar options for the company’s yet to open luxury hotel in Chennai. The money thus raised will be used to retire debt instead of building new hotels and the management now wants to focus on pursuing the asset light strategy (management contracts) going forward.

Following the footsteps is Bangalore-based BSE-listed hotel company Royal Orchid Hotels Ltd (ROHL) which is looking to divest a few of its existing hotels in the portfolio to retire debt and use the balance money to fund developments in key metros like Mumbai. 

In fact, ROHL has already inked a deal to sell its Royal Orchid Central Ahmedabad hotel. “The deal is in final stages of conclusion and the hotel has been bought by SAMHI Hotels Pvt Ltd,” said a source familiar with the development. However, it is not clear at this stage whether ROHL will retain management post the closure of this deal.

Concern over return on investment, industry experts feel, is another reason why investing in the hotel sector is not priority for financial institutions. Sarovar Hotels & Resorts had, in 2005, raised Rs 38 crore from two global private equity funds to part finance its new budget hotel brand, Hometel. Bessemer Venture Partners Trust (an affiliate of Bessemer Venture Partners) and New Vernon Private Equity Ltd had contributed equally in this round of funding.

“The investment, in its seventh year now, has already crossed holding period of 5-6 years and the PE funds will have to start exploring exit options. It will be really challenging (for the PE firms) to take the exit call considering the market conditions and the overall health of the hospitality sector in the country isn’t looking very favourable to register a respectable return on investment,” said a top industry official requesting not to be quoted.

All is not lost with investing in the Indian hospitality market. Of a few hotel companies spoken to, a handful of them are expected to pump in approximately $535 million over the next 8 eight years from now. Interestingly a majority of them are backed by equity participation from international chain while others are banking on their proven track records and execution capabilities for investing in building hotels.

 

Hotels-focused fund Duet India Hotels (DIH) which has a partnership with InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) is looking at an investment of around $125 million in addition to the close to $200 million being earmarked already. The DIH management has set itself a target of 1,000 rooms for the next 8 years and is aggressively working towards getting the hotels up and running.

“We currently have enough money for deployment and are aggressively focussing on demonstrating execution capabilities. A new round of fund raise will happen in the future and it’s really heartening to see that international institutions are already showing interest on investing with our hotel development platform,” said Bali.

The UK’s Premier Inn will investment to the tune of $35 million. “We will be investing approximately Rs 175 crore (to be funded through internal accruals) for new properties coming up in cities like Pune (113 keys), Goa (131 keys) and Chennai (108 keys),” said Shariff.

Urbanedge Hotels, a joint venture company between Citigroup Property Investors and Auromatrix Hotels, has partnered with Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide to develop ‘aloft’ hotels across India. Kumar Sitaraman, chairman and CEO, Auromatrix Hotels Pvt Ltd, said, “We will be investing to the tune of approximately $300 million in the said time frame. While a significant portion ($200 million) of the capital expenditure will come from internal accruals, we will explore other options including private equity for the balance $100 million.”

Adopting the selective investment approach, SilverNeedle Hospitality will invest a very conservative $75 million. The hotel company currently manages over 4,000 keys in the Asia-Pacific region, with an aim to have over 10,000 keys in its portfolio by 2016.

Among, prominent international hotel chains (with significant presence in India) that have already committed equity participation with their respective joint venture partners in India include Accor (with InterGlobe), Marriott International (with SAMHI Hotels), Carlson Rezidor (with Bestech), InterContinental Hotels Group (with Duet India Hotels) and Hyatt International (with Emaar MGF).

Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide is currently the only international hotel company that is yet to invest in the Indian hospitality market. "It's not that we are averse to investing. We have done that in the international markets and will consider if the situation demands. However, I must also state here that our partners are very confident of the value that we bring to the table and that is the key reason they associate with us for their hotel developments," said, Simon M Turner, president - global development, Starwood Hotels and Resorts.

Indraprastha Gas moves High Court after PNGRB orders tariff cut

An edited version of this story first appeared in DNA Money edition on Wednesday, April 11, 2012.

The decision by Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB) to cut gas tariffs in New Delhi has created a major furore in the market.

Going against the order, monopoly gas supplier in the country’s capital Indraprastha Gas Ltd (IGL) has approached the Delhi High Court to contest the PNGRB directive. “We are not clear how they (PNGRB) have calculated this tariff. We do not know the assumptions they have made. IGL has approached Delhi high court, where we have challenged the constitutionality and legality of the powers of the regulator to fix the tariff,” said M Ravindran, managing director, IGL at a media conference in New Delhi.

A joint venture of GAIL (India) Ltd, Bharat Petroleum Corp and the state government of New Delhi, IGL sells auto and cooking gas in New Delhi and adjacent areas.

While IGL is the first to be impacted by this order, industry experts said, other (listed and private) players like Gujarat Gas, Mahanagar Gas, Petronet LNG, Adani Gas etc. are likely to feel the heat next.

Rohit Nagraj, senior research analyst - institutional equity research, Centrum Broking, said the network tariff and compression charges submitted by IGL to the PNGRB have been slashed by almost 60%. “This decision by the regulator will certainly put pressure on peers as their tariffs will also be reviewed and revised based on the parameters used for ordering the price cut for IGL,” he said.

Echoing the sentiments, Dhaval Joshi and Jagdish Meghnani, analysts with Emkay Global Financial Services Ltd, added that post PNGRB’s announcement (and if Implemented) would result in private players staying away from the city gas distribution (CGD) space as lucrative margins would significantly curb down. “In the current scenario only public sector units (PSU) will be the key players in the segment which would run the business with the regulated margins,” the analysts said in their report.

PNGRB, the Indian downstream regulator with a mandate to set tariffs, in its recent order on Monday asked IGL to lower certain tariffs and prices of the natural gas it sells in the capital city. This move, analysts tracking the sector feel, will significantly impact IGL’s operating margins.

As per the new order, IGL will have to lower its network tariff for compressed natural gas (CNG) and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) by around 60% in New Delhi as well as NCR. This in effect is expected to bring down the price of compressed natural gas in the capital could come down by 20% and of piped natural gas (PNG) by 10%. The new tariffs are applicable for a period of five years, post which assumptions regarding capex and operating costs will be reviewed and new tariffs will be effective prospectively.

The tariffs have been fixed retroactively from April 2008 (at levels lower than what IGL had been charging) and the PNGRB has also ordered the company to refund the difference to its customers, which as per rough estimates, could be as high as Rs 1,600 crore.

According to Dikshit Mittal, analyst - institutional research, Sbicap Securities Ltd, said the regulator’s decision to cut tariffs was largely based on IGL’s capex plans which the company management wasn’t able to justify. “This is a major negative for the stock and operating profits of the company are expected to decline by more than 50% as compared to our earlier estimates. At the net profit level, fall is expected to be much sharper with expected 80% downgrade in F13 PAT estimates,” he said.

Lower net block, lower future capex and higher volumes assumptions by the regulator have certainly led to lower approved tariffs feel Gagan Dixit and Sapan Shah, analysts with quant Global research. “Regulator assumed FY09 as first year of operations vs. IGL’s FY10, subsequently lower future profile of net block was assumed for tariffs calculations. Regulator conservatively assumed just 47% of future capex provided by IGL on steel pipeline network augmentation based on actual capex done vs. initially submitted in technical report by IGL. Additionally, PNGRB does not allow offsetting of 1-2% gas loss during operations via higher tariffs,” said the analysts in their report.

Since, marketing margins were agreed up on between the buyers and the sellers, it was said that IGL could charge higher marketing margins in an attempt to offset the lower tariff. However, it is now understood that the regulator has initiated the process to ultimately regulate marketing margin that can be charged by any gas marketing entity thereby negating any such possibility.
“While network and compression tariffs are calculated based on 14% post tax IRR, marketing margins are currently de-regulated. Currently, issue of regulating marketing margins is also under the consideration of PNGRB, which may limit flexibility in maintaining the margins,” Mittal said.

Rattan Keswani may partner Patu Keswani for new hospitality venture

Rattan Keswani, the erstwhile president of Trident Hotels at East India Hotels Ltd (EIH) is likely to partner with Patu Keswani, chairman and managing director of Lemon Tree Hotels Pvt Ltd (LTHPL), which owns and manages the Lemon Tree Premier, Lemon Tree and Red Fox chain of hotels.

While both Rattan and Patu are tight-lipped about their possible association to launch a new business venture, people familiar with the development said an announcement is likely once Rattan Keswani completes his notice period at EIH by April-end.

“He (Rattan) is partnering hands with Patu Keswani to launch the third-party hotel management company which is on the cards. He will be heading the new venture as its president,” said a top official from a leading hospitality company.

Both Rattan and Patu however, did not respond on the said development.

In an earlier interaction, Patu Keswani had shared some of the new developments being worked out at Lemon Tree Hotels including the setting up of a new third-party hotel management company. The new venture was being mulled keeping in mind the growing demand for professional hotel management companies, which industry experts also feel, is a quicker way of expanding business and gaining market share in the current business environment.

“It (hotel management company) is going to be a step-down company where we will do joint venture with other people. It could also be a subsidiary of Lemon Tree where we will be managing hotels of other asset owners,” said Patu Keswani.

Thus projects meeting LTHPL’s brand standards would be operated / managed under the company’s existing brands viz. Lemon Tree Premiere, Lemon Tree or Red Fox. However, LTHPL will also create three new brands to operate / manage hotels that don’t meet the hotel company’s brand standards.

“We intend to do management contracts only in the mid-scale, upscale and deluxe categories. Thus, three new brands are currently being conceived and work is in a very preliminary stage. The new brands will sit in the management company and we should be ready to unveil them in another 3-4 months from now,” he said.

‘Whirlpool will launch products for premium India’

This Q&A first appeared in DNA Money edition on Wednesday, March 28, 2012.

Arvind Uppal

Despite being the world leader in home appliances, Whirlpool is yet to attain market leadership in India. Towards that end, it has introduced several new products in India recently. In three years, Whirlpool will be at the top, says Arvind Uppal, president-Asia Pacific and chairman and managing director, Whirlpool India. He shared his vision in an email interaction. Edited excerpts...

What has been your recent experience in India?
Our share price which used to be Rs17 in 2005 went up to Rs60 in 2008 and went on to touch a record high of Rs338 in November 2010, making us one of the highest profitable mid-cap stocks on the National Stock Exchange. Over the last 12-15 months, we anticipated the slowdown, and have intensified our focus on controlling costs and accelerating innovation. The launch of 160 models across six categories this season shows that we are far better prepared than anyone else in this industry. We are going for leadership even as the industry goes through a difficult period.

How has your Indian business grown? Which categories are piloting growth?
All our categories grew in topline and percentage margin during the period 2008-2011. We grew in our areas of strength — refrigerators and washers — led by some innovations like Protton (3-door refrigerator) and Ace Washstation (top-load washing machine), to name just two. However, we made exceptional progress in categories that Whirlpool has not generally been associated with - air-conditioners and microwaves.
Looking ahead, we see huge opportunity in growing our refrigerator business in 2012 on the back of some great innovation. We wish to become leaders in refrigerators in the next 18 months.

What have been your product failures? Explain the reasons.
Fortunately, we have not had any failures in the last 6-7 years. This is largely because all the products and innovations we bring to market are based on well-researched insights and consumer studies. Perhaps, the only failure we have had was the launch of oil heaters in 2008-09 when we had an unexpectedly short winter.

How do you plan to differentiate in the Indian clutter? 
Innovation, design, performance and quality will drive our brand. Our summer 2012 launches establish new benchmarks for performance — fastest ice-making and fastest bottle-cooling (in refrigerators) and removal of 15 different types of stains (in washing machines).

Why is Whirlpool tapping all price points?
To be No.1 in a country as diverse as India, it is important to understand the dynamics of our demography. For a country with over 200 million households, the size of the home appliance market is 15 million. There are many Indias within these 200 million households. There is the large ‘mass India’, a ‘middle India’ with approximately 65 million households and a ‘premium India’. Therefore, if we want to be No.1 in India, we will have to address each of these consumer segments. Whirlpool has been very strong in ‘mass’ and ‘middle India’, and while we strengthen our position there, we are widening our horizon to launch products that will address the needs of ‘premium India’. In the next 12-18 months, we expect to be leaders in refrigerators and washing machines and the No.1 home appliance company in three years.

We have the lowest penetration levels among emerging markets such as Brazil, China and countries in Southeast Asia. This is a huge opportunity for growth. India is a very large and heterogeneous market, both in terms of economic as well as social profiling. Hence, consumer insights in India need to be very local to the geographies and cannot be just country- specific.

In recent times, you have also launched invertors and water purifiers. What gives?
Water is a strategically important category in India and we want to be leaders there. We see great value creation opportunities here. As regards inverters, these are important but tactical opportunities and we will leverage our brand wherever there are such opportunities. We have tasted more than moderate success in our power accessory business.

Why has Whirlpool earmarked Rs100 crore for product innovation?
Whirlpool India has been a source of inspiration for low-cost innovation. It has won many awards for producing value-creating products with very low use of capital. With India’s increasing relevance to Whirlpool Corporation, we will be expected to innovate continuously for the benefit of our Indian arm and Whirlpool at large.

What’s your plan to develop and enlarge distribution?
We are targeting to be a company with more than 15,000 dealers across India. We are going outside the appliance trade to the specialist kitchen manufacturer channel. Air-conditioners are sold from appliance outlets as well as specialised AC trade called SSDs (sales and service dealers). Water has found its way into electric and small appliance stores. We intend to grow our store presence by 10% every year. We also have about 100 brand stores and these will also get attention and money in our channel strategy.

Blue Mountain denies buzz of deal for 42 UK hotels

This story first appeared in DNA Money edition on Friday, March 30, 2012.

If this hotel ‘block’ deal shapes up, it would measure up as a big-ticket transaction in the hospitality sector globally this year.

According to a report published in The Times, London, Blue Mountain Real Estate Advisors (BMREA), an Indian property investor, has been selected as the preferred bidder for 42 Marriott hotels across Britain after it offered almost £750 million.

The report further said the holding company for the portfolio of hotels collapsed under a heavy debt load of about £900 million, most of which was held by Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), and a part of the Mumbai-based India Blue Mountain Group has been granted a period of exclusivity by RBS to tie up funds for the deal.

But Janak Vaswani, director, BMREA, said his company has nothing to do with the acquisition of 42 Marriott hotels in Britain and that it has not made any offer whatsoever.

“I am hearing this for the first time myself and I’d like to make it very clear that we have nothing to do with this transaction. While I’m not familiar with any other Indian company with a similar name - BMREA - I’d like to state that we are associated with India Blue Mountains Ltd, which is registered in Jersey, UK. However, I’m not familiar of any such deal being pursued by the overseas entity,” he said.

RBS could not be reached for comment. The assets on offer comprise a total of about 8,000 rooms in 42 hotels in England, Wales and Scotland. It is understood that about 40% of the portfolio’s value comes from six hotels in London. All the hotels are operated by Marriott International under a 30-year management agreement that took effect in 2006.

In fact, there has been some buzz surrounding the deal for a while now. The February 2012 report of The Times, citing sources, had talked about a host of business entities participating in this bid, which include Singapore-based RB Capital, Indian conglomerate Sahara and a ‘mysterious Pakistani family’.

At Rs 750 per kg, Tata Salt Flavoritz is India’s costliest

India’s leading salt manufacturer and market leader (64% market share in branded salt segment), Tata Chemicals Ltd has introduced a new range of flavoured salts under the banner Tata Salt Flavoritz. Besides being a unique offering, what sets this new product offering apart is the fact that these are the costliest, being sold in India. Its introduction also marks the entry of the first indigenous brand of flavoured salts in India.

Ashvini Hiran unveiling flavoured salts

Available in three flavours viz. lemon coriander, red paprika, onion garlic and an extension in the form of black ground pepper powder, the salts are available in 60 grams packs and come in attractive hour glass shaped HDPE sprinkler bottles. Each flavoured salt is priced at Rs45 per 60 gram bottle i.e. Rs 750 per kilogram.

The company’s current offerings include Tata Salt priced at Rs 14 per kilogram, Tata Salt Lite that costs Rs 21 per kg and I-Shakti available at Rs 12 per kg.

According to Ashvini Hiran, chief operating officer - consumer products division, Tata Chemicals Ltd, the company has always carried the onus of delivering differentiated value-added offerings within the salt spectrum. “Tata Salt has been trusted for consistency in taste, purity, iodine content and assurance of health. With Flavoritz, we are now adding a pinch of flavoured salt to our portfolio. The idea is to give consumers never-tasted-before blends of flavours that give a new dimension to their daily food. Flavored salt is iodised salt mixed with natural flavours that makes mundane recipes sumptuously tasty,” said Hiran.

The company officials said that an in-depth consumer research and studies were conducted to identify the flavours and arrive at an optimal product formulation for Flavoritz. “The product development journey was an uphill task which needed creating own benchmarks in terms of product stability and striking the right balance between saltiness and combination of flavours. Several combinations were tested over the year to arrive at a formulation that suits Indian palate,” said Parag Garde, assistant vice president – marketing and strategy, consumer products business, Tata Chemicals Ltd.

The company will initially make these flavoured salts available in key metros starting with Delhi and Mumbai with close to 1 lakh units. By September 2012, the flavoured salts will be sold through modern retailers and key local kirana outlets across the country.

Tata Chemicals currently enjoys a market share of 64% in the branded salts segment and the company management is targeting to increase it by 5-7% in the upcoming fiscal. The company's distribution network currently at 11 lakh outlets across the country is also likely to grow by 15% in the next 12 months. The company currently has a production capacity of a little over 8 lakh tonnes p.a. and its average monthly sales volumes is around 75,000 tonnes per month.  

A part of the $83.5 billion Tata Group, Tata Chemicals Limited (TCL) is the pioneer and market leader in India’s branded Iodised salt segment. The company also provides affordable, safe drinking water solution to the masses with the introduction of its innovative, low-cost, nanotechnology based water purifier called Tata Swach. The company currently is the world’s second largest producer of soda ash with manufacturing facilities in Asia, Europe, Africa and North America.

Accor’s Formule 1 to take on Tata’s Ginger

This story first appeared in DNA Money edition on Saturday, March 24, 2012.

Accor, the French hospitality major, is set to give fierce competition to Tata group’s budget hotel chain Ginger with the India debut of its Formule 1 hotels at Greater Noida next month.

The Asia Pacific’s largest international hotel operator plans to open 10 more Formule 1 hotels, its first low-cost offering in India, by 2013-end.

Philip Logan, vice-president, Formule 1 Hotels, India, said, “It will be the first true international budget hotel brand in the country filling the void for standardised comfort at a competitive price of around Rs2,000 per person.”

Accor said it would also unveil the concept of standard rooms with a single price for up to three people, though it did not share details as to how this pricing mechanism would work.

Michael Issenberg, chairman and chief operating officer, Accor Asia Pacific, in an earlier interaction with DNA Money, had said, “The Formule 1 hotels are positioned at the economy segment carrying the sub-`2,000 price tag for a night’s stay. These hotels will largely compete with brands like Ginger and offer limited services. The food and beverage facility in these hotels will be outsourced to third-party firms.”

Industry experts said Accor’s pricing strategy would be a game-changer in the budget segment.

“The Rs2,000 tag for Formule 1 guestrooms is quite aggressive. It would be interesting to see how Ginger counters it, as when it (Ginger) was launched as Indione back in 2003-4 it had promised a pricing of under `1,000. However, its rates increased to over Rs2,500 over the years across most locations,” said a senior official of a leading hospitality consulting firm.

Details about the cost per key (one guestroom) for a Formule 1 hotel were kept under wraps as well. But industry experts said that cost of a Formule 1 guestroom would be around Rs20 lakh, excluding land costs. The cost per key at Ginger was pegged at Rs15 lakh, including land costs.

All the Formule 1 hotels in the pipeline (12 hotels by 2015) would be owned and managed by Accor.

Florian Kohli, general manager, Formule 1, Greater Noida, said the 114 rooms at the hotel are stylish, more restful, with soft colours, rounded edges and soothing lighting, as well as extra storage space.

“The soundproof rooms come with TV, free wireless internet, quality bedding and individually controlled air-conditioning,” said Kohli.

Govt levies 30% tax on start-ups receiving angel investment

My colleague Beryl Menezes contributed to this story which appeared in DNA Money edition on Monday, March 19, 2012. 

Entrepreneurs looking to raise angel or venture capital funding for their respective start-ups will not be very pleased with a recent amendment being made to Clause 21 of Section 56 of the Direct Taxes by the finance minister. As per the new ruling, start-up companies will now have to pay tax at the rate of 30% on investments received from angel investors and non-registered venture capital funds operating in the Indian market.

Saurabh Srivastava, co-founder, Indian Angel Network (IAN) believes this clause is extremely ill advised and has probably been triggered by the 2G scam. “Unfortunately, it is the equivalent of dropping an atom bomb on a city because one criminal needs to be killed. This clause will completely kill all angel investment in the country and, with that, spell the death knell of first generation entrepreneurship that had begun to mushroom over the last few years,” he said. Indian Angel Network has thus far invested in over 30 start ups in the last 6 years.

While the clause exempts venture capital firms that are registered with the Indian regulator - Securities and Exchange Board of India - SEBI, there are a host of such investors are not registered in India and funds raised from such firms will be taxed by the IT department.

The clause however, makes a big dent on funds being raised from angel investors operating in India because none of them are registered. Actually, there is no such category with the Indian regulator that allows this set of individual (angel) investors to register.

“I have over a dozen such (angel) investments in my personal capacity but I am not a registered investor. In fact, if this clause was in existent earlier, Spectramind wouldn’t have happened and so would have a host of other entrepreneurial initiatives that have shaped up in the last decade or so,” said Raman Roy, member, Indian Angel Network (IAN). Roy was also the founder of Spectramind which pioneered the concept of business process outsourcing (BPO) in India back in 2000.

 

Ravi Mahajan, partner, tax and regulatory services, Ernst & Young India, feels while the provisions have been introduced to track black money, it would negatively impact genuine angel investors. “Only venture capitalists have been exempted from this amendment and any valuation more than the fair value will be taxed. This will adversely impact angel investors, if funding is based on valuation that IT authorities don't agree with, then the companies will have to pay the difference between the forward-looking investment by the angel investor and the valuation as assessed by the Income Tax department, as tax - even if they do not make profits on the same. This will thus become a cost funding for the small companies, affecting their profitability. Cost of tax would also lead to longer break-even time for smaller companies,” said Mahajan.

Angel investors generally act as catalysts by making available the initial capital - starting from Rs 10-20 lakh to a crore or more - to new start-ups with a good business idea. These set of investors work towards promoting entrepreneurial initiatives by providing the much needed financial support and ensure such activities continuously flourish in the country. However, various measures enunciated for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) will now come to naught because of this one clause, feels the angel investor community.

“This is because angel investment precedes venture capital investment. For VC's to fund 10 companies, we need 1,000 entrepreneurs to be funded by angels. It is common knowledge that when you fund an entrepreneur who just has an idea and not much else, the definition of fair market value cannot possibly be determined by any valuer and certainly not by a tax authority but only resides in the minds of the entrepreneur and the investor. A tax officer could legitimately see the value as close to zero, whereas any angel investor who chooses to invest will do so because he / she sees great value and would buy shares at a huge premium because they would want the entrepreneur to hold a majority of the company,” said Srivastava.

Roy added, “What the clause does now is that, when we invest as an angel in a company, the income tax (IT) officials will raise questions about its networth. Start-ups are about ideas and concepts with no assets that can be quantified as its networth in the market. Angel investors pay for the idea which is yet to take the form of a commercially viable business model. Google was created as an idea with just $10,000 and the company is worth billions of dollars now. If the same $10,000 was to be given to an entrepreneur in India now, the IT department will impose a 30% tax on the money raised.”

The angel investment community asserted that rather than giving them a tax break for making such risky investments for creation of wealth and employment - as is done by most countries in the world - the Government in effect is taxing them and therefore, encouraging them to put their monies in unproductive assets like farm houses and real estate.

Sageraj Bariya, managing partner, Equitorials, a stock market advisory, research and training firm, said that the move will be contrary to the Government's aim of providing more jobs, as this would dampen entrepreneurial aspirations. “The Government does not have the right to decide the valuation of a company, and this is certainly not the solution for the problems that arose from forward-looking foreign investor funding, like in the case of Telenor-Uninor, which now have their licenses cancelled as a result of the 2G scam. This move will make foreign private equity companies think twice about investing in India, which will curb investment opportunities.

“Additionally, smaller companies - like many small IT firms who have gone in for this mode of operation - will face problems in attracting new capital. So for example - a partnership like Infosys and OnMobile, may not happen as frequently as before, as these larger firms would cut their investments to avoid taxation. The need for small IT companies to move from a services-led to product-led category, by getting funding from angel investors will also be significantly impacted by this move," said Bariya.

The Rs 1,000 cr premium domestic appliances market is growing at 30% annually

This Q&A first appeared in DNA Money edition on Wednesday, March 14, 2012.

One of India’s largest electrical and power distribution equipment manufacturer, Havells entered the the over Rs 5,200 crore Indian domestic (home) appliance market in August 2011. The idea, according to Anil Gupta, joint managing director (JMD), Havells India Ltd, is to grab a significant pie of this business by leveraging on their existing distribution channel network. He speaks on the company's new business vertical and the way forward. Edited excerpts…

What really led Havells to enter the domestic appliances business?
Previously we were dealing in products (electrical and power distribution equipment) which never required a consumer interface. However, 6-7 years ago, we added fans and lightings to our product portfolio which gave us a consumer interface which significantly increased over the years. The new offering also resulted in building a large dealer as well as service network across the country.

We were then looking at expanding the product category further thereby allowing us to foray into the consumer segment. We also wanted to take advantage of the existing infrastructure and realised that the dealer and service network required by the domestic appliances products was very similar to what we already had in place. We thought the best way to leverage on this distribution channel was by entering the Rs5,200 crore domestic appliances market in India.

Are your products catering to the entire domestic appliances market in the country or addressing a specific segment?
We consciously decided to address the premium category which currently is Rs 1,000 crore market in the country. Interestingly, this market is growing at a very fast rate of 25-30% annually. Going by the Havells brand perception, it made more sense for us to tap the premium domestic appliances segment with related products. We are currently offering a host of domestic appliances across five categories including food preparation, garment care, home comfort, cooking and brewing. The price range is anywhere between Rs 1,000 going up to Rs10,000.

Who would your direct competitors be in the domestic appliances category?
Our products compete with brands like Philips, Panasonic, Murphy Richards etc.

How much has the company invested in this business?
A capex of Rs 150 crore has been earmarked already in this fiscal of which Rs 70– Rs 80 crore is being spent towards marketing, research and development of small appliances range in next 24-36 months.

What is the company’s strategy with respect to designing and manufacturing of these products?
We already have a large research and development (R&D) base in China, which has been designing our products snice a couple of years now. Of our entire range at present, 50% is coming out of China and the balance from India. We have not set up our own manufacturing plants and are using large outsourcing partners to make these products based on our prescribed design and quality standards. In fact, this is the first time ever that Havells has outsourced manufacturing of the products as 95% of the company's products were manufactured in-house.

Will you continue outsourcing route or plan to set up own manufacturing facilities as well?
It depends on how the volumes grow. If a particular product category requires to be done in-house, we will certainly look at the option.

What is the size of this business for Havells?
We are expecting to do more than Rs 100 crore in revenues in the first full year of operation i.e. the next financial year. The target for next fiscal will be Rs 200-odd core and eventually hitting the Rs 500 crore mark in the next 4 years.

Could you throw some light on the company's distribution network?
As far as overall business is concerned, we currently have more than 4000 distributors across the country. Of this approximately 1,500 distributors are for consumer and domestic appliances business.

How are you going about leveraging this distribution network?
We have identified various distribution channels for the domestic appliances business. To start with, we have the direct dealer network (1,200) that operates multi-brand outlets, then we have distributors (100) who sell to retailers primarily in the tier II, III cities and finally the Havells' single brand - Havells Galaxy Stores  - outlets (150) being rolled out through the franchise mode. This apart, we are also selling through 40-odd modern retail outlets like Croma, Spencers, More, Vijay Sales etc which are significantly growing across the country.

Considering the extensive range of products being offered under the Havells brand, we are looking to significantly expand the network of single brand outlets across the country. Havells Galaxy Stores will be increased to over 200 stores within a year.

Are you also planning to take the e-commerce route to retailing the Havells brand?
Although the kind of sales being generated through the online channel is extremely small right now, online shopping for such products will also increase in the coming years. Keeping that in mind, we have already started work on our e-commerce platform and will definitely launch it in the near future.

Any plans to get into the consumer electronics segment down the line?
No we don’t intend to tap that space as that business requires a completely different kind of a distribution network.

Are you also witnessing pricing pressure owing to increasing input costs?
The challenge for any good company is how to get the right quality at the right price. There certainly is a lot of focus on expanding the distribution and keeping the costs at bare minimum. Companies work on various designing concepts to reduce the cost of the product for the end customer. So while we are committed to give a high quality product, it does not necessarily mean a high cost.

Would you consider tapping the mass market segment of domestic appliances as well?
When I say premium products it is actually mass market but high quality. There is a switch happening from the low quality to high quality branded products which is why the over Rs1,000 crore market is growing at 30% odd annually.

A lot of private equity exits will happen by second half of 2012, says Archana Hingorani

This Q&A first appeared in DNA Money edition on Monday March 12, 2012.

After seeing a huge traction till the first half of 2011, the private equity (PE) market turned lacklustre in the second half. While the number of deals has gone down, the sizes too have shrunk. Archana Hingorani, chief executive officer and executive director of the BSE-listed IL&FS Investment Managers Ltd (IIML), one of the largest PE funds in India, with over $3.2 billion under management, spoke about the overall business environment for PE firms and developments within her company. Excerpts from the interview:

Q: PE exits have significantly slowed in 2011. Do you see the momentum picking up in 2012?
A: There certainly has been a slowdown in PE exits, which were looking very promising till the first half of 2011. That’s also because the market was looking very buoyant and stable between second half of 2010 and first six months of 2011. In fact, most of the exits that have happened in the last fiscal or are about to happen in the next fiscal, are all because of negotiations done in that period of 2010-11.

While some deals have already been concluded, many will happen in 2012. This is because in the second half of 2011, there was no expectation or ability to convert the exit discussions into a meaningful transaction. Having said that, the funds would have exited but most of the transactions wouldn’t have probably given the real value to the investors.

Q: IL&FS Investment Managers also made a few exits...
A: Yes. Our earliest exit in the last fiscal I can remember was Continental, which we sold to Warburg. But that was based on the work done in the first quarter of 2011. Everything takes time and it really is an amalgamation of a lot of work that has gone into negotiations prior to the deal getting announced. Even from this fiscal perspective, while we have done some partial exits, many of them are related to our real estate projects that have seen sales happening, with cash flow coming back into the business. Other than that, I don’t think there has been any significant full exit in 2011. I think a lot of that (full exits) will likely happen in the first six months of 2012 because a lot of work has already been done on them.

Q: Has the increased timeframe for concluding transactions impacted the size of the deals being discussed over a period of time?
A: I think post-2008 investment sizes have shrunk primarily on the real estate side. While we had a very large, fund and it would have been ideal to put in, maybe, 15 investments overall. That would have made the per-investment size way too large from an opportunity perspective. I’m not saying we are putting less in a transaction and asking other people to support it.

We are just doing smaller transactions because I don’t think in the real estate space - at least from a risk-return perspective - it makes any sense to put in $100 million pieces. While real estate per se needs a lot of money, the kind of transactions we are comfortable with are ideally in the $20 million to $50 million bracket. Based on our learning from the previous fund in 2006-07, we made smaller investments from the second fund, primarily because of the investment cycle; the amount of time taken for project completion is too long. The impact hasn’t been much in the growth capital (PE) side, especially because we are operating in the mid-market space and not putting $50 million or $100 million in a transaction.

Q: Is that the reason you always invest in special purpose vehicles (SPVs) and not at entity level?
A: We have never done entity-level investments and are biased to SPVs because one has a lot of clarity on the kind of the project, the cash flows, timelines and the exit pattern. This is not the case with entity-level investments because of the diversity of projects, and one is not able to understand how each underlying entity is doing. Besides, one has to significantly rely on public markets for an exit — which has timing-related issues.

There may be just one entity-level investment in Fund I while Fund II is entirely SPV investments. Besides, even at the SPV level, we are only focusing on smaller investments and will not go beyond $50 million a piece. We took a conscious call that the portfolio will become bigger and will require more management bandwidth.

Q: Among the three verticals— private equity, real estate and infrastructure — which one will see a lot of activity in 2012?
A: We see opportunities across and would happily and readily invest from all the three verticals if we have investible corpus. While there is an economic slowdown, assuming that interest rates are likely to come down, we do expect businesses to start coming back to growth stage. Now whether infrastructure investing will be slower than private equity or real estate will largely depend on what opportunities are being looked at.

The market isn’t expecting significant changes, but if the companies already have projects that were bagged 2-3 years ago, these are still under implementation and a lot of such investment opportunities are available. We would certainly be looking at investments across the sectors, and in infrastructure we see a lot of potential in waste management, ports and logistics.

On the growth (PE) side, we are looking at consumer-oriented businesses that are focusing on domestic consumption, while for the real estate vertical it will be largely the residential developments in the metros. That has been our investments theme and it hasn’t really changed in the last 2-3 years.

Q: What is the extent of investible corpus with the company as of now?
A: There is money left to be deployed in the infrastructure vertical (Standard Chartered IL&FS Asia Infrastructure Growth Fund — $658 million) to the extent of $250 million to $300 million. So around 40% of the original corpus we raised in 2008 is still available for investments. We are fully committed in the real estate fund, so there is no investible capital available. On the PE side, we were fully committed last year and have kick-started an exercise to raise a new fund. The growth fund is expected to be $300 million and we are very far away from that number as of now.

Q: When do you expect to do another fundraise for the infrastructure vertical?
A: We will do a fundraise as soon the corpus starts dwindling; this is a vertical where we will be deploying money this fiscal. While in normal circumstances, investment firms start new fundraise as soon as they have invested 70% of the overall corpus. However, the market has changed and the investor’s (limited partners) focus is more on the fund’s past performance and how well the underlying portfolio is really doing. I think that’s a right thing to do from the investor perspective, and our view is that the scenario is completely different in terms of when we want to start the fundraising cycle.

Q: Is the scenario indicating a possible change in the overall fundraising approach by PE firms in India?
A: If you look at our real estate vertical, we are 100% committed, but we have not yet gone out because we want to be fully invested. And because it is a new sector for India in terms of performance, track record, return on investor capital, it is more important to show operating / financial performance on the portfolios before going back to the LPs (limited partners) for another fundraise.

Q: By when will the next round of real estate fundraise happen?
A: We will start around June or so this year once we are fully invested. The corpus for our new real estate fund will be half the size of what the earlier fund was. This is because we have halved our investment size. If you have a large fund, portfolio management becomes a big challenge. The overall figure for this fund will probably be around $500 million vis-a-vis the $900 million we did in the earlier fund.

Q: Will the fundraise be largely from international markets or will you look at a mix of domestic and international markets?
A: We have done both in the past, but clearly the dollar approach is looking much better, especially looking at the rupee conversion rate; so we will do a 90:10 ratio in our funds.

Q: Which international markets are you looking to tap for the new fundraise?
A: It depends on the sectors largely. For instance, in real estate, the US investors have been ahead of the curve while it is the European investors when it comes to infrastructure. As we raise only $200 million-$300 million at a time, the set of investors in growth (PE) is pretty small. While there are institutions from across the world, a lot of family offices from Europe, Asia and the Middle East form part of investors in the growth fund.

Q: You think domestic high networth individuals (HNIs) are a good source when it comes to raising funds?
A: Internationally, family offices are largely HNIs to a great extent. As for Indian HNIs, the domestic market hasn’t matured to an extent that we can boast of having a family-office concept. There are a handful of them (like Azim Premji’s) currently which will morph into what are traditional family offices over time. But from a risk-return profile, is an individual investor putting Rs5-10 lakh in a PE fund the right candidate? The answer is no. This set of investors doesn’t understand how the PE business functions and the lack of awareness continues in the market. They are more appropriate for product-oriented or yield funds because that makes more sense for such investors.

Q: Could you take us through the performance of IL&FS Investment Managers’ portfolio of investee companies? Has the slowdown impacted their performances as well?
A: It will be very difficult to discuss each company. All I can say is that despite difficult times, many of our companies are growing at over 25% and there are a lot of them in the portfolio. There has been a slowdown significantly with investee companies from the older portfolio.

Q: Is any of them likely to do a fresh round of fundraise or go in for an initial public offering?
A: There are no new rounds of fundraising. However, some of them (in the waste management and infrastructure sectors) will certainly get ready for a public offering in the upcoming fiscal. Work is in the initial stages but some of them will hit the markets in the next 12 months. I feel if you have the right company which is doing well and expected to sustain future growth with a reasonable approach to valuations, then there certainly is room, and we have seen that happen with a few companies in the last few quarters.

Pride loses Biznotel Aurangabad to Berggruen’s Keys

Global billionaire investor Nicolas Berggruen’s Indian hospitality business operating under the banner Berggruen Hotels P Ltd has been appointed as the new managers of the Pride Biznotel The Aures hotel in Aurangabad. As a result of this recent development, the 4-Star property will now join the fast growing brand of Keys Hotels and has now been re-branded as Keys Hotel The Aures.

The 62 rooms Aurangabad hotel is owned by Aures Hospitality Group (AHG) that has entered into a strategic partnership with Berggruen Hotels. It is understood that the two partners will explore more opportunities across the country. The group has also initiated plans for a mixed use development comprising of 100 rooms hotel at Nashik, though it is not clear at this stage if the hotel will also be managed by Berggruen Hotels.

Located in the heart of Aurangabad the hotel caters to business as well as leisure travellers. The hotel is close in proximity to the major industrial areas of Aurangabad, and is strategically situated at a distance of 10 kms from the Airport and 2 kms from the Railway Station.

According to Rajesh Choudhary of Aures Hospitality Group the partnership with Berggruen Hotels is aimed at offering guests, a cutting edge hospitality experience. “Aurangabad is a multi-purpose destination offering pilgrim and heritage tourism besides business travel due to vibrant industry in and around the city. With Ajanta and Ellora being on the Buddhist Trail, it attracts fair amount of overseas tourists as well,” he said.

The Keys Brand currently operates its own hotels in Trivandrum, Ludhiana, Bangaluru (Hosur Road), Bangaluru (Whitefield) and manages hotels for owner partners in Lonavala, Mahabaleshwar, Chennai, Mumbai, Pune and Aurangabad. The room count currently in operation is 1127. The company currently employs 1,100 people and will have two additional Keys properties at Vishakhapatnam and Cochin. In addition, development activity is under way at Goa, Lucknow, Baroda, Kovalam, Raipur, Shirdi and Gurgaon.

Sanjay Sethi, managing director and CEO, Berggruen Hotels, said the hotel company’s plans to launch Keys Hotels in India are well underway. “We will continue to tap into a growing market of savvy travelers’ seeking good value for money and stylish surrounds, delivered by a strong management team who are experienced and at the leading edge of thinking in the hospitality market,” he said.

The hotel group’s turnover in 2011-12 from all owned and managed hotels is Rs 82 crore and by the year 2015–2016, it expects a turnover of Rs 215 crore. In addition, the company expects to operate 20 managed hotels with employee strength of 2, 500 people and a total room count of 3,500.

The newly added Aurangabad hotel has 5 categories of rooms from Executive to Club to Deluxe suite targeting the upwardly mobile corporate traveller and also provides facilities like Harry’s Bar and a multi-cuisine restaurant - Blue Cilantro. Among other facilities include a 24/7 gym, business centre, pick up and drop luxury transportation to and from the airport, banquets for specific requirements, high-tech conference rooms and seamless Wi-Fi connectivity on the premises.

Oberoi Group's VP - development, Davinder Singh joins The Leela Palces, Hotels And Resorts

Here is another senior management level movement from the Indian luxury hotel chain The Oberoi Hotels & Resorts.

Davinder Singh, vice president - development of The Oberoi Group of Hotels (EIH Ltd) has joined The Leela Palaces, Hotels and Resorts as the hotel chain's vice president for development. In his new role, Singh will be involved in all aspects of development including, site selection, design, branding, negotiating management and joint venture agreements and working with external property and financial consultants.

An avid traveller Singh holds an honours degree in economics from Punjab University, Chandigarh and has nearly 35 years of extensive business experience and specialised knowledge in the hospitality industry. He started his career with Remington Rand India Ltd as a management trainee. Subsequently, he worked as an assistant sales manager, Welcomgroup Searock, Bandra Lands End (Mumbai); sales manager - Tours, Travel House; sales manager, Hyatt Regency, New Delhi and as sales manager - tours with Mercury Travels India Ltd before joining EIH Ltd.

Rajiv Kaul, president, The Leela Palaces, Hotels and Resorts said, “Davinder joins The Leela family at a very crucial time in the expansion of the brand and we are delighted to welcome him on board. His expertise and extensive experience in Development, coupled with a reputation for excellence makes him an outstanding asset.”

Earlier Rattan Keswani president of Trident Hotels with the Oberoi Group had quit and is currently serving notice period. The market has it that Keswani is set to launch a new venture. Will have to wait till April-end / early June to know what venture is he really launching.