Realty firms can survive without black money

New Delhi: Mahindra Group Chairman Anand Mahindra on Friday said the market cap of its realty firm Mahindra Lifespace has crossed $1 billion, proving sceptics wrong that the company could not survive without transacting in black money.

The milestone has vindicated the Group's entry into the real estate sector, he said. Mahindra Lifespace Developers Ltd is the real estate arm of the Mahindra Group. It is listed on stock exchanges. Shares of Mahindra Lifespace Developers were trading at Rs 519.75 apiece on BSE, up 2.29 per cent at 11.28 am before closing at Rs 509.90 on Friday. The market capitalisation of the company was at Rs 8,032.51 crore. This morning Mahindra Lifespace crossed a market cap of $1 billion and became the next 'unicorn' in our Group, tweeted Anand Mahindra.

"I remember when I entered the real estate sector in the late '80s via Mahindra Ugine, I was told that we would not survive without transacting in black money. But that was exactly why I felt we had to enter the sector & prove the sceptics wrong," he tweeted.

"My gratitude to Arun Nanda who led the sector & to the @life_spaces team led by Arvind for getting us to this milestone & vindicating our entry," Mahindra said.

Arun Nanda retired as Chairperson (Non-Executive Non-Independent) of the company with effect from July 28. The company's board approved the election of AmeetHariani, Non-Executive Independent Director of the company as the new Chairperson. Arvind Subramanian is the Managing Director and CEO of Mumbai-based Mahindra Lifespace Developers Ltd, which is one of the leading real estate firms in the country.

Established in 1994, Mahindra Lifespace Developers Ltd development footprint spans 32.14 million sq ft of completed, ongoing and forthcoming residential projects across seven Indian cities. It also has over 5,000 acres of ongoing and forthcoming projects under development/management at its integrated developments/ industrial clusters across four locations.

In April, Mahindra Lifespace Developers Ltd announced an investment of Rs 500 crore to develop India's first net-zero energy housing project, comprising around 550 units, in Bengaluru. The company also announced that it will develop only net-zero housing projects from 2030 onwards, and the farm equipment-to-aerospace conglomerate will become carbon neutral by 2040, ten years ahead of the Paris Agreement targets.