Indiabulls wins NTC land in Mumbai for Rs1505 crore

Indiabulls Real Estate picked up its fourth National Textiles Corp (NTC) property in Mumbai – and its second in less than a week – when it won the bid for the over-eight-acre Bharat Textiles Mills land near Worli Naka for Rs1,505 crore on Friday through its arm Indiabulls Infratech. At twice the reserve price (Rs750 crore) fixed by NTC, the deal works out to about Rs188 crore per acre.

Indiabulls' bid beat its nearest rival, the Lodhas, by Rs2 crore. This is the highest price that a defunct mill property in Mumbai has fetched to date. The public sector NTC is selling land of defunct textile units to raise resources for the revival of 21 mills that are potentially viable. It has already started modernisation in 18 of its mills, while the remaining three will foray into unexplored sectors like technical textiles.

Interestingly, just a day earlier, a source in Indiabulls had told a newspaper that the company would not bid "aggressively" for this property because of its poor frontage. On Friday, it seemed to have changed its mind and went the whole hog for this prime land. It is believed this was in anticipation of getting a parking floor space index (FSI) of 4 from the state government.

The company, which is in real estate, power and financial services, last week won another NTC mill, the 2.3-acre Poddar Mills at Worli Naka, for Rs474 crore as against its minimum price of Rs250 crore.

Indiabulls has been creating ripples in Mumbai's property market since it entered the real estate business five years ago when it bought NTC's Jupiter Mills for Rs276 crore and Elphinstone Mills for Rs441 crore.

The e-auction for Bharat Mills, which commenced on Wednesday, saw neck-to-neck bidding between Indiabulls and the Lodha Group during the final hours. Lodha stopped bidding at Rs1,503 crore while the third highest bidder, Peninsula Land (Piramal), did not stretch itself beyond Rs1,409 crore.