Rava-Backed Logicap Teams With Mitsubishi to Develop India Industrial Portfolio

Logicap Management, an industrial investor backed by Singapore-based Rava Partners, has formed a joint venture with Japanese property giant Mitsubishi Estate to develop facilities across key industrial hubs in India.

The JV’s seed portfolio comprises assets in the National Capital Region of Delhi, including two operating warehouses developed by Pragati Warehousing, a portfolio company of Logicap. The pair of facilities in Gurugram are spread across 29 hectares (71.7 acres) and offer a combined area of 179,000 square metres (1.9 million square feet), Logicap said Monday in a release.

Built between 2021 and 2022, the two facilities are fully occupied and designed to support industries ranging from traditional manufacturing to e-commerce, according to Logicap. Pragati has developed more than 12 million square feet of Grade A sheds in the world’s most populous country.

“With the rapid expansion of India’s manufacturing hubs and the surge in e-commerce, this collaboration with Rava Partners allows us to create world-class industrial and logistics facilities that meet the highest global standards,” said Pragati founder Jitender Yadav.

Long-Term JV

Logicap described the venture with Mitsubishi Estate as a long-term collaboration in which the partners will build a pipeline of assets to support India’s industrial growth.

“We are excited to partner with a strategic investor such as MEC to grow out our portfolio to meet our target to acquire and build an additional 15 million square feet of capacity in the next year — doubling our current footprint,” said Logicap fund management head Priyank Shah.

Rava Partners, the real assets division of fund manager Hillhouse Investment, has committed over $2.5 billion across a portfolio of more than 15 real asset businesses in Asia Pacific.

In addition to Logicap, Rava’s portfolio companies include Asia Cold, a cold storage operator in China; EZA Hill, which develops industrial and business park assets in Southeast Asia; and Table Space, a co-working provider in India.

Founded by Zhang Lei in 2005 with seed capital from the Yale University Endowment, Hillhouse launched the Rava real assets strategy four years ago in collaboration with former Warburg Pincus executive Joe Gagnon and Hillhouse veteran Carl Ge.

Betting on Sheds

The last two months have seen fund managers upping their bets in India’s red-hot industrial market.

In early September, Blackstone-backed Horizon Industrial Parks was selected by the Indian government as the lead partner to manage a portfolio of 13 last-mile logistics assets.

Horizon, which is owned and managed by the private equity giant’s real estate funds, will redevelop the state-owned assets into modern facilities over the course of a 45-year partnership, with an estimated investment commitment of INR 7 billion ($83 million).

In August, London-based Actis announced the formal launch of its logistics joint venture with a unit of Indian conglomerate Mahindra Group, with the platform aiming to acquire and develop 1.5 million square metres of greenfield and brownfield sites in India.

The new business, called Ample Parks, has completed its maiden acquisition of 70 acres (28.3 hectares) of land within Chennai’s Mahindra World City for development into an industrial park.