Jones Lang LaSalle India bags M&A Deal Of The Year award

Jones Lang LaSalle India, the country’s largest and leading international property consultancy, has been honoured with the prestigious India M&A Deal Of The Year award in the Middle Markets category. The award was handed over at the Annual India M&A Atlas Awards 2011 function held in Mumbai recently.

The INDIA M&A Atlas Awards – The Gold Standard of Performance is part of the prestigious Global M&A Atlas Awards which honors top deals, dealmakers and outstanding firms from the India mergers, acquisitions, corporate and private equity deal communities. It is a decisive mark of distinction amongst the global community, conveying that winners have achieved the highest performance standards in mergers, acquisitions and alternative investing communities globally.

Jones Lang LaSalle India’s Capital Markets division received this award for the seamlessly professional facilitation of Tata Realty and Infrastructure Limited’s acquisition of Peepul Tree Properties Pvt. Ltd from Kotak India Real Estate Fund.

“Jones Lang LaSalle acted as the seller-side advisors on behalf of Kotak India Real Estate Fund,” says Ujwala Rao, Head (West) Capital Markets, Jones Lang LaSalle India. “This was the first exit of a private equity fund from an income-generating commercial property estate asset. It was also one of the most successful private equity exits in Indian real estate, going by the equity multiples achieved in the deal.”

Sanjay Dutt, CEO – Business, Jones Lang LaSalle India says, “The deal proves that successful exits can indeed happen. It has already generated a flurry of enquiries from top private equity firms desiring to monetize their real estate assets.”

Jones Lang LaSalle India has already engineered exits for clients such as IndiaREIT and the Pacifica Group of Companies. , predicts that there will be a lot more activity on the exits front over the coming year. The company is already in talks with a number of offshore companies listed with AIM (London Stock Exchange) and the Singapore Stock exchange as well as other private equity funds who have expressed interest in structuring similar deals through JLL Capital Markets.

“The early round of investors who made their entry in 2005-’06 have now completed their investment horizons and are ready to exit,” says Shobhit Agarwal, Jt. MD – Capital Markets, Jones Lang LaSalle India. “In fact, exits started in 2009-’10, with the key driver being the return of capital to fund investors by the fund, largely driven by the global financial crisis. Most active funds exiting at the time were US-based funds. Today, the drivers for exit are either the next round of fund raising or opportunistic exits.”

The currently employed modes of exit are natural exits (through dividends/cashflows from the investee company), promoter buybacks (where the promoter has a longer term investment horizon) and third party exits – sale to new investor

Most exits so far have been through route first or second.  Jones Lang LaSalle Capital Markets expects third route to become more active going forward. The overall trend is positive, since it demonstrates that Indian real estate has seen the entire investment cycle from infusion of institutional capital to the return of capital. It demonstrates that funds have made money in real estate.