Milestone forms JV with J Leon Group

Milestone, India’s largest independent Real Estate Fund house is launching Milestone Ecofirst Advisory Services (MEAS) through a 50:50 Joint Venture with Ecofirst. Ecofirst, established with a multi million pound budget, is a J. Leon Group company based in UK.

With the launch of Milestone Ecofirst Advisory Services (MEAS), for the first time in the country, a real estate fund house will be offering its investee companies/projects specialized consultancy services for eco-friendly development.

“We want to ensure that most of the development (approx. five million sq ft) being funded by Milestone across the country would be eco-friendly and meet global norms in sustainable development,” Ved Prakash Arya, Managing Director Milestone Capital Advisors said.

 “MEAS will not just offer its services to developers in metros, but for the first time in India offer world class green building consultancy to developers in Tier II and Tier III cities”, Mr. Arya added.

Milestone has invested in over 25 projects across Tier II and Tier III cities, including residential, commercial, mixed-use projects and townships.

“Given the rising fuel costs and power shortages, Green Buildings don’t just make great environmental sense but sound economic sense as well. While Green Buildings may cost about five-ten percent more to construct, the savings in annual energy costs alone can be 30-40 per cent. Using Milestone’s deep relationships with leading developers in India, we hope to sensitize developers on this and related issues,” Kim Slowe, Ecofirst said.

Initially MEAS will provide consultancy to projects being funded by Milestone and later extend the service to third party developers as well.

 “MEAS will have a core team of professionals trained in Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED and will provide a full service offering through a network of specialists and experts in energy services, water and waste management, material and resource analysis along with suppliers, vendors, LEED facilitators, architects, urban planners, engineers and project managers, Mr. P G Ganapathy, Director MEAS said.

India has emerged as the hottest new destination for green buildings and today ranks fourth after US, Australia and Canada in the amount of area under green construction. According to CII-Indian Green Building Council (IGBC), 147 million sq ft of green space has been registered in India to date across a total of 239 projects. IGBC is targeting one billion sq ft of green footprint by 2012.

Milestone has so far raised over Rs.2, 400 crore from the domestic market and has the highest deployment ratio in the sector having so far signed investment deals worth Rs.1,800 crore.

Milestone currently is in the process of raising Rs.500 crores for its domestic fund “Milestone Domestic Scheme II” 

Sourced From: Escher Communications