BENGALURU: Mangal Prabhat Lodha, the promoter of Lodha Group, real estate company is the country’s richest property developer. According to the second edition of the GROHE Hurun India Real Estate Rich List, Lodha has a net worth of Rs 27, 150 crore. The joint study conducted by GROHE and Hurun India ranks the top 100 Indian real estate developers in terms of their net worth.
According to the report titled ‘GROHE Hurun India Real Estate Rich List 2018’ the total wealth of top 100 Indians in the real estate sector stood at Rs 236,610 crore or $32.7 billion, which is an increase of up 27 per cent against the previous year. The cumulative wealth of top 100 real estate majors for 2017 was Rs 186,700 crore ($28.6 billion).
“India perhaps accounts for the largest population of homeless people in the world and aptly, the government is embarking on its most ambitious housing programme. At the same time, the Indian economy is back on track and is expected to uplift millions of people to better economic conditions – thereby further improving the demand for the real estate – across premium, residential, office and commercial segments,” said Anas Rahman Junaid, MD and Chief Researcher, Hurun Report India.
Bengaluru-based Embassy Group’s CMD Jitendra Virwani stood at the second position with a net worth Rs 23,160 crore. Rajiv Singh, son of DLF’s KP Singh, stood at the third position with a net worth of Rs 17,690 crore. Interestingly, DLF Group founder KP Singh, who was the richest real estate developer in 2017, did not find a place in the top 10 in the current year’s list. He has transferred his shares to Rajiv and daughter Priya.
City-wise, Mumbai is the most preferred city of residence for real estate tycoons in India with 35 names hailing from the city, followed by Delhi and Bengaluru. These cities are home to 78 per cent of the top 100 realtors.
Only four names aged below 40 years were featured in the list – indicating that the experienced and long-standing names build wealth in the long run from this sector in India. Nine women entrepreneurs were listed in this year’s list, with Renuka Talwar of DLF featured as the richest woman.