Word: singhs
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...doing just that. Barely known outside its northern-India base a few years ago, the company is building houses, apartments, office towers and shopping malls across India's booming cities. It has plans for airports, hotels and cinemas. Singh, 75, wants to be a prime mover in the country's drive to erect modern cities where India's new middle class can live, work, shop and play. To do all that, though, DLF needs a lot more money, which is why on July 5 the company held an initial public offering for just over 10% of the company, bringing...
...Bombay) and New Delhi are now more expensive than those in Paris, Hong Kong or midtown Manhattan. Yet the boom may still have room. Merrill Lynch forecasts India's property industry will grow to $90 billion by 2015, up from $12 billion in 2005. "You will need 100 DLFs," Singh says...
...though, has a big head start on the rest of the industry, thanks largely to Singh. The amiable tycoon, known by his initials K.P., was dressed during a recent interview in a white suit with a polka-dot pocket square. He recalled how prescient strategy--and a stroke of luck--turned DLF into a property powerhouse. Founded by Singh's father-in-law Chaudhury Raghuvendra Singh, DLF (originally Delhi Land & Finance) got started in 1946, a year before India won its freedom from Britain. Raghuvendra bet that hundreds of thousands of refugees who were expected to settle in India...
...good times ended in 1957 when New Delhi's socialist government granted itself sole development rights for the city, forcing private firms out of the business. By then, Singh had married into the family. The son of landlords as well, he had studied aeronautical engineering in Britain before returning home as an officer in the Indian army. By the time he joined his father-in-law's business in 1960, real estate development work had dried up completely. Instead the company tied up with two U.S. firms to manufacture electric motors and automotive batteries. The joint ventures eventually foundered...
...Singh's plan centered on Gurgaon, a dry, scrubby plain in the state of Haryana, near New Delhi. If he could buy enough land and then convince authorities to change their regulations preventing companies from acquiring farmland for commercial use, perhaps he could outdo his father-in-law's success. By 1981, though, the company had acquired just 40 acres and failed to change the law. Frustrated and despondent, he sat beside a well one scorching summer day. What the heck can you do in this place? he recalls wondering...