13 May, 2008, 0603 hrs IST,Rajesh Unnikrishnan, TNN
 
MUMBAI: Rajeev Misra, global head of Deutsche Bank’s credit trading business, in his individual capacity, has acquired 30% equity stake in Chennai-based Rattha group’s special economic zone project for around
Rs 262 crore. Rattha group is developing a Rs 1,750-crore IT SEZ project in a privately-held land at Porur, a western suburb of Chennai.

“I feel Chennai is the right location for investments. It is an upcoming IT hub and the city has already emerged as manufacturing centre,” Mr Misra, an NRI based in London, told ET. “Currently, many auto and pharma firms are developing manufacturing capacities. The city is also close to other IT hubs such as Bangalore and Hyderabad.”
He added that compared to other cities like Mumbai and Delhi, land prices in Chennai are comparatively cheaper.

Rattha group, with interests in garment exports, infrastructure and hospitality industries, focuses on constructing infrastructure facilities, specially for the IT industry. Its IT SEZ project is built on 26 acre, with a saleable area of over 4.5 million sq ft.

It is estimated that the project would generate over 50,000 jobs and comes equipped with a 100-room service hotel. The first phase of 1.1 million sq ft would be completed by December 2009, and the project would be fully completed by 2012, Mr Misra said.

SEZ projects, coming up in privately-held lands, are currently attracting investments from private equity funds as well. Recently, Delhi-based Raheja Developers said it has plans to raise Rs 530 crore from PE funds for its proposed engineering SEZ at Gurgaon. It will offload a 26% equity stake in the SEZ to the PE fund.

Media reports suggest that PE funds and infrastructure institutional investors are in the race for acquiring stake in the Pondicherry SEZ Company, which is setting up a Rs 2,700-crore integrated fashion city with 26% local government holding. 
 
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