Charlemagne Capital Limited (the "Group"), the specialist emerging market fund management group, has announced that it is managing the investments of Indian property company, Naya Bharat Property Company plc (the "Company"), whose shares were being admitted to trading on AIM yesterday. Naya Bharat has issued 60,000,000 shares at US$1 per share through a placing to institutional investors, raising US$60 million.
Charlemagne has over three years experience in investing in Indian assets via its Global Emerging Markets funds and in December 2005 launched the Magna India Fund. In addition, Charlemagne's private equity and property team has been party to numerous investments in the property sector.
- Naya Bharat is a newly incorporated Isle of Man company established to invest primarily in both listed and unlisted companies whose principal activity is the ownership and/or development of land in India.
- The Company's objective is to provide shareholders with an attractive overall return to be achieved primarily through long-term capital growth.
- The Company will seek to take advantage of perceived capital market pricing anomalies by investing in established listed property investors/developers at substantial discounts to their net asset values.
- Charlemagne believes that listed property companies offer attractive valuations relative to other listed Indian companies, but not on a price/earnings basis.
- A key element of the valuation is the unrealised value of land and partially completed construction.
- Charlemagne believes that it has the local knowledge of both companies and markets required to find listed property companies at attractive valuations.
- Charlemagne believes that listed property companies offer attractive valuations relative to other listed Indian companies, but not on a price/earnings basis.
- In addition to investment in listed property investors/developers, special situations in unlisted, pre-IPO and property-rich smaller capitalisation stocks will be sought.
- The Company will aim to establish a portfolio of investments with low liquidity in the underlying stocks and does not anticipate significant turnover until relative and absolute pricing anomalies have been realised.
KC Reddy, Portfolio Adviser to Naya Bharat said: "There are attractive investment opportunities in India, with property companies trading at substantial discounts to their current NAVs."
Jayne Sutcliffe, Chief Executive of Charlemagne Capital, said: "Naya Bharat is the ideal vehicle for investors wanting exposure to the fast growing Indian property market, and Charlemagne Capital has the required local expertise to successfully manage the portfolio."
Source: Charlemagne
