Two big deals were the talk of the town in the global real estate space (including the Indian property market) in recent times. This highlights how business titans and Bollywood giants steadily keep the global real estate markets churning.
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Shah Rukh Khan’s Mega Bet
This time Shah Rukh Khan has invested in a whole new category and a mega one at that! King Khan already has global real estate investments galore, including a reported New York property (where his daughter Suhana was staying a while back), a home in London and even one in Dubai which is a massive villa called Jannat. He also has lavish bungalows in Alibaug and New Delhi, not to mention the crown jewel in his portfolio and one of India’s most expensive homes – Mannat, the sea-facing bungalow in Mumbai. His family also has other sizable investments in commercial office space since the superstar runs a slew of other ventures.
These include the Kolkata Knight Riders cricket team, Red Chillies Entertainment with its own VFX and movie-production divisions, a stake in KidZania and the interior design business run by his wife Gauri Khan. Now, King Khan has gone ahead and made a big-ticket investment in global real estate once again. Only, this time it is not something residential or even plain commercial. He will invest $30 million in developing a cricket stadium near Los Angeles.
The Knight Riders Group, supported by Shah Rukh Khan, Jay Mehta and Juhi Chawla, will pump in funding for a 10,000 seater stadium near LA as per reports. The stadium will come up on a 15-acre plot at Great Park, Irvine, Southern California, roughly 40 miles away from downtown LA. The plan is being fast-tracked by MLC (Major Cricket League). There are negotiations already ongoing with Irvine City for swiftly driving negotiations and approvals for the design and layout. KRG are already the owners of the successful Kolkata Knight Riders and Trinbago Knight Riders (Caribbean Premier League) teams.
This stadium will be built innovatively, making it suitable for future expansion as required. It will be designed by HKS, the noted architects and will house the Southern California-based MLC franchise. There are roughly 100,000 fans of cricket along with another 200,000 people within Los Angeles County itself. Two Minor League Cricket teams, Hollywood Master Blasters and the SoCal Lashings in tandem with local youth and adult leagues already offer a foundation for cricket-related activities in this zone.
The stadium will have locker rooms, training set-ups, parking space, field lighting, luxury suites, concessions, global-grade pitch for adhering to ICC requirements and more. The proposed stadium will try to be a host for the 2024 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup (co-hosted by the West Indies and U.S.) and if cricket gets an inclusion in the Olympic Games for 2028 (to take place in Los Angeles), then some games of the same as well. U.S.A Cricket may also submit bids for several other women’s and men’s World Cup events in the future.
Shah Rukh Khan is reportedly upbeat about the MLC investment in America, since it will sync with the vision of creating Knight Riders as a T20 global brand.
Nandan Nilekani Scores Another Ace
Nandan Nilekani, business titan, and the visionary behind the Aadhar Project, is already one of the richest IT czars in the country. He has now made headlines with yet another real estate deal that has set tongues wagging in the market!
NRJN Family Trust, an investment entity founded by the Infosys Ltd Co-Founder and Non-Executive Chairman, has purchased a luxury unit on “Billionaire Street” in Bangalore, namely the Koramangala 3rd Block for a whopping sum of Rs. 58 crore!
The luxury property covers a sprawling 9,600 square feet with 3,082 square feet in its total built-up area. The registration took place on 19th April, 2022, with the buyer paying Rs. 2 crore in stamp duty alone. The property seller was Mr. Suresh Ganesh Heble as per reports. The authorized signatories for the deal were Rajmohan Krishnan and Nandan Nilekani himself. Industry experts are already gung-ho over the deal, calling it one of the biggest in Bangalore and how the chosen location of Billionaire Street is apt. The block already has lower supply of independent homes or plots and hence there is always soaring demand from UHNWIs (ultra high net-worth individuals). Nandan Nilekani’s net-worth is estimated at $3 billion as per last reports and he owns this trust along with his wife.
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Koramangala 3rd Block and its story
Koramangala 3rd Block has always been one of the wealthiest zones in the city of Bangalore, housing technology players like Wipro and Infosys along with numerous successful start-ups. Some of India’s most well-known and reputed start-up founders and entrepreneurs live in Koramangala 3rd Block, including Narayana Health’s Devi Shetty and Binny and Sachin Bansal, the founders of Flipkart. The 3rd Block is the costliest out of six blocks in the locality owing to its bigger plots and also because only billionaires live on this stretch. Bungalows covering 4,000 sq ft are priced approximately at Rs. 25,000 per sq ft here as per reports.
The son of Infosys co-founder NS Raghavan, Sriram Nadathur, purchased a Koramangala 3rd Block residential property for a whopping Rs. 11.6 crore some months earlier, followed by Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan who picked up not one but two properties at Rs. 76 crore here. Quess Corp’s promoter purchased a 9,507 sq ft bungalows here for Rs. 52 crore. Ajit Abraham Isaac purchased his property from Singapore-based NRI, Brijesh R Wahi. The property cost is roughly Rs. 58,000 per sq ft.
Sachin Bansal, Flipkart Co-Founder, tapped into the proceeds from selling his company stake, picking up a property of 10,000 sq ft here at Rs. 45,000 per sq ft. He also purchased a property for Rs. 25,000 per sq ft earlier in 2016 here. Anesh Shetty, Devi Shetty’s son, bought an independent home in Koramangala sometime earlier for a sum of Rs. 18.57 crore as per reports. NRJN Family Trust has already picked up a property for Rs. 39.8 crore earlier in December, 2019 here. Raja Bagmane has also made a purchase for Rs. 43.2 crore here along with Jhanavi, Nandan Nilekani’s daughter (Rs. 30 crore spent in December, 2019).
