The joint venture with Warburg Pincus is focused at co-living space in India, said Patu Keswani, chairman and managing director of Lemon Tree.
Under the joint venture, which was announced on Thursday, global private equity firm Warburg Pincus and Lemon Tree Hotels will hold 68 percent and 30 percent stake, respectively.
The investment will be around Rs 3,000 crore with the partners initially investing Rs 1,500 crore in equity over a period of time, followed by an additional infusion of Rs 1,500 crore in equity at the option of the partners.
“One of the subset we are looking at is student housing. There are 35 million students in India; in college and post-graduation and most of them do not have accommodation on campus. Therefore, we are looking at focusing on this segment and providing a standardised, high quality student accommodation product across India,” said Keswani.
Talking further about the projects, he added, “We are also looking at young urban professionals for whom rental and even capital cost for housing are very high in the large cities of India and therefore providing co-living space for them.”