Founder’s Message

Apr 2011

Having entered our 25th year of operations, after a lot of internal deliberations, I am happy to release the organisation’s Shared Vision and Mission statements and Core Values. This should stand in good stead for the decade ahead and give Brigadiers a clear sense of direction, enabling them to work with a unified sense of purpose and to achieve set goals and objectives. Every Brigadier has to remember and constantly remind oneself of Brigade Group’s core values and ensure these shared values are not compromised in any way.

Sheraton Bangalore Hotel at Brigade Gateway, which had its soft opening in mid-March, has received very encouraging feedback from guests and industry professionals. This well-appointed 230-room, 5-star deluxe hotel with six F&B outlets and a 1000-seater banquet hall, is bound to be amongst the best hotels in Bangalore, and will be the pre-eminent Sheraton Hotel in the country. General Manager Martin Wuethrich from Switzerland and Executive Chef Gustavo Maurelli from Italy will bring their international expertise to lead Sheraton Bangalore in the path of success.

It is a fantastic achievement by the Indian Cricket Team to have won the ODI World Cup, after a gap of 28 years. It is very difficult to live up to expectations, having been the favourites to win the Cup. The credit undoubtedly goes to the players for their outstanding teamwork, superb leadership of Captain Dhoni and Coach Kirsten, and performing when it mattered most in the knock-out stage. Many analogies can be drawn to the corporate world from the strategies adopted in winning the Cup.

India’s 2011 provisional census figures, indicating a population of 1.2 billion+, is certainly a cause for worry, and not celebration. Speedy urbanisation is a matter of great concern to city planners. Meeting the infrastructural needs of the growing population will be a huge, daunting task. Our planners have to work overtime to ensure that demand for space and services are met, if one has to stop proliferation of slums in urban centres. There is a great need to decentralise growth by ensuring development of each and every district and taluk centre.

The Karnataka State and Central budgets for 2011 have been passed. Unfortunately, policies and tax rates are being tinkered with frequently, leading to confusion and a loss of direction to the business community. Real Estate hardly finds favour with the tax authorities. A few examples: in Karnataka, stamp duty rates on Joint Development Agreements have been increased by an unbelievable proportion and the VAT applicability principle in the construction industry has changed to compound the confusion. In the Centre, tax exemption to SEZ units is withdrawn by imposing MAT; Service Tax is imposed for hospitality business … the list goes on and on.

Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption campaign was much needed and, hopefully, will serve as an eye opener to the government and corrupt people. The spontaneous response to Anna’s fast from all sections of society was most encouraging and heartwarming. High corruption in society is what is coming in the way of India’s planned and sustained growth, and stopping the country moving from good to great. If people’s simmering discontent about corruption in every sphere of life is to be avoided, fast and inclusive development across the country is the only answer. Otherwise, Egypt’s Tahrir Square kind of situation is not far off in our country. If one determined Narendra Modi and one determined Nitish Kumar can make so much of a difference in Gujarat and Bihar, imagine what a small battalion of such people could do to the growth of India. By showing honesty and progress, if Nitish Kumar can get 80%+ seats in the Assembly (highest ever by any party in any state in the country since elections came to be held), why don’t other politicians realise good development will ensure re-election and continuance in power?

Let us hope for the best!

Aug 2011

How things dramatically change in a very short time! The three very significant developments in the last few weeks are:

S&P downgrading Credit Rating of United States from AAA to AA+ and the resultant turmoil in world financial markets;

Central Government’s clueless and immature response to Anna Hazare's movement against corruption;

Dramatic collapse of performance of Indian Cricket Team—from World Champion status to school boys team level.

All were avoidable and self-inflicted; due to complacency, arrogance and politics. But all the developments have shaken the world / country / establishment. It would take quite a while for normalcy to set in.

India was on the path of recovery from the recessionary conditions of 2008-2010, till inflation within the country and multiple scams involving thousands of crores were unearthed. Naturally, an anti-corruption movement is required to cleanse the system, at least to some extent. While corruption is a worldwide problem and existing probably from the time civilization started, it has reached mind boggling and dangerous proportions in our country, which is bound to destroy us if not tackled now. I hope and pray a positive outcome will emerge from the spontaneous, tremendous and voluntary support the Anna Hazare movement has received.

From the beginning of 2011, the mood in the real estate sector was one of optimism, which was expected to turn to bullishness. Unfortunately, due to the macro economic factors plaguing the world, cautiousness has set in. High interest rates have not helped the mood at all. I hope and wish there will not be any worsening of global factors and ratings. Due to the inherent strength of the Indian economy and latent unsatisfied demand of the past 3-4 years, pessimism is unlikely to set in.

Tourism is one industry which can have a far reaching positive impact on any economy and will help in generating employment in the unorganised sector for the uneducated class. Statistics of just Singapore and Hong Kong make startling revelations. Singapore, with its 5 million population (size less than Bangalore), attracts 12.5 million tourists (2.5 times its population). Hong Kong, with its 7 million population, attracts 36 million tourists (5 times its population). Whereas, India, with 1.2 billion population, gets only 5 million tourists, i.e., a dismal 0.05%. China gets 56 million tourists and earns USD 185 billion a year (about the same as the entire annual export earnings of India). India has the potential to earn at least USD 100 billion (if not more) in a year, provided proper strategic actions are taken by the Central and State Governments to improve infrastructure and tourist friendliness. India has many, many more tourist sites than China.

I am delighted to mention that Brigade has received 3 important awards in the last 4 months:

‘Economic Times’, in association with ‘Great Places to Work Institute’, rated Brigade Group as the 2nd best company to work for in the Real Estate Sector, and also as 88 among all companies in the country.

‘CNBCAwaaz–CRISIL–CREDAI’ selected our Integrated Township Project, Brigade Metropolis on Whitefield Road, as the Best Residential Project 2010 in South India.

‘Construction World’ rated us amongst the Top 10 Builders in the country for the 5th consecutive time, in a perception survey in which developers, financial institutions, architects and vendors, across the country participated.

The festival season has started. I hope it brings cheer to the Indian economy and joy to its citizens.

Dec 2011

Reflections on Brigade Group completing 25 years.

ON 10th October 1986, the foundation stone for Brigade Group's maiden project—Brigade Towers on Brigade Road, Bangalore—was laid in a simple Ground Breaking ceremony. I started the partnership firm Brigade Investments, which created Brigade Towers, with the support of my family and two family friends. The firm was a single-project venture and the result of an earlier missed opportunity by the family to invest in a prime real estate project in Bangalore. It was formed with no clear plan or vision for the business, at a time when I was planning to diversify from the chicory processing business I had started in 1980, because of a serious industrial relations problem in 1984. (In retrospect, I should warmly thank the labour leader who created the problem!)

Brigade Towers, the first 14-storied building in Bangalore (and, at that point of time, one of the very few projects to market ownership offices) was an instant success. This was one of the few real estate projects to be marketed in a planned manner; ours was the very first real estate advertisement released in India Today! What was a one-project venture became two projects, then four, then eight … growth continued slowly but steadily. Then a lack of consensus on growth strategy with a partner led to the partnership firm Brigade Investments being dissolved in 1997, to be restructured as Brigade Enterprises Pvt Ltd in 1998, at the height of the real estate recession.

The new millennium brought cheer to the real estate sector and Brigade Millennium—Bangalore's first integrated enclave project, launched in 2002—brought cheer to Brigade Group. We have not looked back since then. Of the 20 million square feet promoted by the Group since inception, 90% (comprising a wide range of projects) was completed in the last ten years. We are proud of every project we have executed, confident we have given our best each time. Many of our projects belong to the ‘first-of-its-kind’ category in Bangalore and Mysore. Our best project yet is probably Brigade Gateway, undoubtedly the most integrated city-centric mixed-use project. Nowhere in the world does one come across residential apartments, club, offices, school, mall, hotel and hospital, all within one campus close to the centre of the city. A fine example of the concept of 'Live-Work-Play', it is the perfect answer to many traffic-related problems in urban centres.

The real estate sector is full of challenges, the primary one being dealing with multiple civic authorities. If one were to have projects across Bangalore, we would have to deal with at least eight planning authorities (before 2007 it was 13!), each with a different set of building bye-laws—not to mention another nine authorities for NoCs and utilities. Also, the business is bombarded with multiple taxes and duties. Ours may be the only industry where the transaction of marketing a house / apartment by a developer is considered a 'sale' by the state revenue department; a 'works contract' by the state commercial tax department and a 'service' by the central service tax authorities—attracting stamp duty, vat and service tax along the way. This is doubly strange when you think this is a sector catering to one of the basic needs of mankind: shelter. It is shocking to know that 40% of the cost of an apartment goes towards direct and indirect taxes. If this be the case, how will the government policy of 'housing for all' succeed?

After the 2008-10 recession in the sector, the second major one in 15 years, the developer community was expecting a boom in 2011. But the financial turmoil in the western economies and rudderless governance in our own country (leading to inefficiency and very high interest rates) has subdued business prospects. One can only hope that quick corrective steps will be taken by the government to avoid further slippage. A silver lining for the real estate sector may come in the form of higher NRI investments and improved earnings for the software sector due to a weaker rupee.

THE nice part of the real estate business is the tremendous satisfaction one derives from creating a long-lasting edifice and in the contribution one can make to satisfying the home-owning aspiration of so many people. While developers should act as 'trustees' of the life savings of clients, in many a case it has become a huge challenge to meet the ever-increasing expectation of today's informed customer. Increased construction activity during the last decade coupled with overall improvement in the economy has led to a tremendous shortage of manpower and managerial talent in the sector—for which there doesn’t seem to be a solution. Substantial mechanisation is yet to happen; when it does it will also lead to increased costs. With India's trillion dollar GDP expected to more than double in the next ten years, I shudder to think how solutions to the complex problems facing the sector would be resolved.

The governments at the centre and various states should invest time, money and effort to upgrade the quality of town planning for hundreds of towns and cities in the country, which will help improve the quality of living. Chandigarh and New Delhi—and Brigade Gateway at the project level—have shown what good planning is all about. Improved quality of life and opportunities in smaller towns will reduce urbanisation and the pressure on utilities. But this may end up remaining a pipe dream with the lack of attention shown by authorities to urban planning and the redevelopment of old congested areas in the cities.

The immediate internal challenge for Brigade Group is to launch and complete 30 million sft of new projects across seven South Indian cities. The Group will continue to focus on real estate and hospitality in the immediate future. We intend taking the concept of integrated townships to the next higher level in our Brigade Orchards project, near the Bangalore International Airport.

I am very glad our Not-for-Profit initiative in education—Brigade Foundation— has made a mark in imparting quality education through its three schools in J. P. Nagar, Malleswaram and Mahadevapura, all in Bangalore.

As part of Brigade Group’s Corporate Social Responsibility, we will be supporting a Museum of Music (a first of its kind in the country), promoted by the Indian Music Experience Trust. To give back to society in our own field, we will also soon be setting up a Not-for-Profit company to take Social Housing projects to the urban poor. At an appropriate time, the company will also initiate vocational training and management development programmes in the construction field. I hope these initiatives will receive the generosity of the general public and will also help motivate others to take up similar initiatives.

I would like to record my sincere thanks to team Brigade, directors, shareholders, to our family of associates (architects, consultants, contractors, bankers, suppliers, officials in the civic authorities and government), friends, well-wishers and, of course, all our customers, who have shown their confidence and support in me and the organisation during the last 25 years and helped in shaping Brigade Group.

With 31st December 2011 fast approaching, many will be happy that a most forgettable year is coming to an end. As usual, one hopes the New Year will bring good cheer and happiness to our lives.

I wish all readers a great 2012.