From malls to hotels, office parks to departmental stores, and more, the Rahejas have shown they have a keen sense of what makes real estate work, and that it helps to have extremely long-term orientation
Venu Nair, who runs Shoppers Stop, has the third Tuesday of every month blocked on his calendar. The Raheja family, which set up India’s first departmental store in 1991, conducts a monthly review, agrees on action points and then mostly leaves the management team on their own to execute.
It’s not just Shoppers Stop. A similar template is followed at the other businesses at K Raheja Corp. The Chandru Raheja-led group is present across a variety of real estate businesses—from departmental stores, office parks and hotels to residential real estate. Its steady rise through the last three decades has catapulted the real estate billionaire to rank 46 on the 2022 Forbes India Rich List with a net worth of $4 billion.
Sons Ravi and Neel are the next generation stewards taking the legacy forward. A rival who has known them for a while says they are not too comfortable with their wealth to do nothing, but they are not so aggressive that there is a risk of a blow-up on account of excessive risk-taking or leverage.
Through the years, the group has shown that it has a keen sense of what makes real estate work. It is present across a swathe of real estate businesses and except for residential real estate, the rest are operating businesses where they are responsible for the long-term health of the companies. The group has three listed entities—Mindspace REIT, Shoppers Stop and Chalet Hotels—that are valued by the public markets at ₹37,000 crore. And there are the unlisted residential as well as malls businesses. Promoter stakes in each of the listed entities are above 65 percent.
“Ravi and Neel have the reputation of top-notch fund managers,” says Ashish Jakhanwala, who runs SAMHI Hotels that competes with the Rahejas’ Chalet Hotels. He’s seen them over the years build a hotel chain that is well-positioned for the revival in room occupancies.
(This story appears in the 15 December, 2022 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)