My leadership style is centralized and fully focused on management by objectives focused on execution and deliverables with a team of committed professionals1. Tell us more about your company and your journey. Huntington York Smart Cities (Building Future Cities)
HYSC- the basic premise is simple to grow at a rapidly increasing rate from now until the year 2030 and become a global industry leader in the development of a chain of self-sufficient off-grid eco-smart city/township/villages to be located in the fast-growing world suburbs throughout the developing world with a focus on India. HYSC smart cities will meet the demand for mass scale flexible and affordable smart city infrastructure addressing the market from rural to urban city migration population growth and the need for environmentally sustainable future cities.
I have been recognized as a pioneer in the rapidly developing Indian Infrastructure & Housing Sector and recognized by India’s, Business & Economy with a rank of 23 among the top 100 people for 2007 for our achievements in the real estate -smart city space. Our companies Huntington York Smart City and sister entity Royal Indian Raj Int (RIRIC) have been quite active. We received Indian Central Govt Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) approvals under India’s newly created “Integrated Township Sector” program in September 2004 and became the first Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) permitted under this initiative.
RIRIC has been at the forefront in creating a prototype smart green city. Our vertically integrated proprietary smart city model is unique and a significant undertaking by any company standards. In India, we have been at the forefront of conceptualizing and are launching multibillion-dollar master-planned Green Smart city /township communities under its Royal Garden Villas & Resorts, Royal Garden Cities. 135 hotels in various Indian Cities under a Budget Brand and a national exclusive chain of PGA courses.
When India opened its economy to the world in 1991, we started on the path to realizing a vision and dream to build eco-minded digitized communities in India and Asia that would stand out on the world’s stage as being progressive and of the highest possible standards. Today, that dream is becoming a reality and RIRIC is at the forefront of introducing and developing first-class resort communities and modern satellite cities in key metros of India under its Green Smart City – Royal Garden City, Royal Garden Villas & Resorts and its hotel brands.
“We see the integrated township format as a key driver of future housing supply and as a catalyst for the much-needed infrastructure investments in the rapid urbanization of India and were a precursor to India’s 100 Smart City initiative launched in 2016. The Indian government has spelt out key incentive policies to provide an impetus towards easing the flow of private investments and Royal Garden City is one of the first to have been conceptualized and planned to meet this objective in 2004,” says Benjamin.
Royal Indian Raj, International Corporation Selects, Jones Lang LaSalle as Real Estate, Advisor for USD$9 Billion `Smart City’ in Bangalore, CPG Corporation To Master Plan India’s Largest Real Estate Development – Royal Garden City
Royal Indian Raj International Corporation Secures $547 Million USD GBP 300 Million Pound Sterling Equity Line of Credit from New York Based GEM Global Yield Fund
Royal Indian Raj International Corporation (RIRIC) today announced that it has secured a GBP 300 million (US$547 million) equity commitment structured as an equity line of credit through UK-based GEM Global Emerging Markets’ Global Yield Fund.
According to Anil K. Agarwal, former President of ASSOCHAM (Associated Chamber of Commerce and Industry of India), leading international investors like Royal Indian Raj International, Blackstone Group, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup Property Investors, Morgan Stanley and GE Commercial Finance Real Estate are showing a keen interest and establishing their presence in Indian real estate.
In the 1999-2008 period, we began aligning ourselves with venture/technology partners world-wide who also saw the potential for modernizing real estate in the Indian market and committed them to HYDC/RIRIC’s objective of “Building India for the New Millennium.”
Over a projected 12-15-20 year program, HYDC/RIRIC will inject an estimated $10 billion US dollars into its premier real estate developments under the highly touted Royal Garden Cities projects and its Royal Garden Villas and Resorts’ brand.
India is truly emerging as the quiet lion about to roar. Our drive and vision are to create an economic and technological connection between East and West. Our company is going to be playing an integral part in the country’s burgeoning infrastructure & housing, green and smart technology, finance and development sectors.
2. How do you describe your leadership style? My leadership style is centralized and fully focused on management by objectives focused on execution and deliverables with a team of committed professionals
3. What was a difficult decision you had to make, and how did you come to that decision? Suspension of Indian Smart City activity
RIRIC has faced significant delays as its pioneering efforts in India’s recently opened real estate market 1999-2009 were previously halted by India’s historically uncertain and ill-defined general realty practices. A prolonged, widely cast governmental land rezoning freeze 2005-2009 around the Bangalore International Airport caught RIRIC and many other developers, stalling 460 realty projects in the Bangalore North region.
Further, in what proved to be the “perfect storm,” a disgruntled former media employee in the USA in 2008 before internet laws were in place launched web digital assassination and fake news/cyber-attacks against the company exploiting the ill-defined Indian realty sector, which disrupted RIRIC’s early brand incubation in India in 2009 disrupting large scale revenues and postponing an IPO. The clearances by the North American regulators along with the finalized Indian government permit clearances at central and state levels now gives RIRIC the green light to proceed.
Prior to 2008, RIRIC had established working protocols with such names as Choice Hotels (15,000 rooms), Century 21, exclusive rights to the Jack Nicklaus golf courses and Academies for India; a 1 billion US$ strategic financial relationship with The Greenwich Group; consultancy associations with Jones Lang LaSalle and CPG Corporation [former Singapore Public Works Dept.]; and financial relationships with Global Emerging Market Fund on a £300M Equity Line of Credit. The following townships were presented to the Indian government, and proposed for development with our Township master plans submission:
- Royal Garden City Bangalore (2004) – 3,000 acres (146.36 million sq. ft. built-up) “Smart” City, Bangalore, India
- Royal Garden City Mumbai (2004) – 5,000 acres (217,800,000 sq. ft. built-up) “Smart” City, Mumbai, India
- Royal Garden Villas and Resort (2005) – Phase 1: 17 gated communities (610,000 sq. ft. buildable), proposed expansion to 137 acres (5-7M sq. ft.) Bangalore, India
- The Italian Village (2007) – 1,136 acres (44,000,000 million sq. ft) gated community, Bangalore, India
- Golf India (2007) – a series of prestigious, planned golf course communities across India by golf legend Jack Nicklaus
- The Special Economic Zone (2008) – 12,500 acres for commercial development, State of Meghalaya, India
India’s real estate market only opened to the world in 2002 and dealing with India can be challenging. A World Bank report ranks India at 182 out of 185 countries in the ‘dealing with construction permits’ category. Long gestation periods and practices not familiar to people outside of India, can be misunderstood. However, when you look at Indian demographics the potential upside is mind-boggling to consider. By 2031, about 600 million Indians will reside in urban areas, an increase of over 200 million in just 20 years. This change in the socio-economic landscape will have a bearing on several things, infrastructure and housing being the foremost. India’s rate of urbanization is particularly staggering, where 300 million people will migrate from villages to cities by 2030. According to a McKinsey Report. It is estimated that nearly 70 cities with a population of greater than 500,000 would be added to the country’s landscape by 2020.
RIRIC has been at the forefront in creating a prototype “Smart Green City.” “Our vertically integrated proprietary “Smart ” City model is unique and a significant undertaking by any company’s standards. “In addition to long gestation periods, projects which are capital intensive, it requires vision, the pursuit of excellence and hard-headed business acumen. In India, it requires additional mastery over many complex risk factors and procedures prevalent in these types of emerging markets: such as poor regulatory environments, undefined real estate laws/practices, prolonged re-zoning issues, continuously changing governments, and excessive governmental red tape for project permissions with average approvals taking up to six to eight years. It takes patience, perseverance and personal contacts at the highest political level. RIRIC has all three in abundance.”
RIRIC is well versed in the risks and challenges inherent to developing Eastern markets and is readily equipped to handle the multiple facets of its projects. RIRIC initially entered into their township development projects in 2000 and received State Government of India Single Window clearances. They received Indian Central Govt Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) approvals under India’s newly created “Integrated Township Sector” program in September 2004 and became the first Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) permitted under this initiative. State permissions were gained in 2009 and municipal permissions in 2011.
Moving forward: We were forced to suspend India operations until the Indian Regulator RERA was passed in 2016 standardizing Indian realty with construction loans, REIT’s and other financing vehicles finally in place.
Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016
“The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 is an Act of the Parliament of India which seeks to protect home-buyers as well as help boost investments in the real estate industry and standardize transaction’.
We are pleased to announce the resumption of our Smart City/Township program in 2021.
4. What values are most important to you as a leader? A Leader should be Decisive, Visionary thinking, disciplined, thinks out of the box and is a problem solver. Must be principled and all around balanced both in one’s corporate and personal life. They must be reliable and honest filled with integrity with an extreme determination to win with a will to succeed against all odds. They must have perseverance be persistent and is committed to the team they lead and is a team builder.
5. Who is your favourite leader and Why? On the business front, great business leader possesses more than the celebrated traits of charisma and an appetite for risk. They have “contextual intelligence”- a profound ability to understand the zeitgeist of their times and harness it, to create successful organizations. Entrepreneurial innovation, savvy management, and transformational leadership. Those leaders that stand out in my mind are…
Jamsetji & Jrd, TATA, for being the creator of the modern Indian industry. Dhirubhai Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries for revolutionizing the Indian stock ex-change also named the Indian Entrepreneur of the 20th Century by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) with The Times of India in 2000 voting him “greatest creator of wealth in the century”. N. Murthy, Infosys a revolution in software, Azim Premji – Indian billionaire businessman of the Wipro software company., Lakshmi Mittal – Mittal Steel Company chairman for developing a world-wide steel conglomerate and Forbes 2005,3rd richest man in the world. Muhammad Yunus – Bangladeshi economist and founder of the Grameen Bank that has pioneered Microcredit. And Sunil Mittal for connecting India via the telephone. Samuel M. Walton, Walmart the world’s largest retailer incredible vertical standardization, Walt Disney for making children laugh, William H. Gates III Microsoft for championing the beginning of the information age and a new world economy, Gordon E. Moore & Andrew S. Grove Intel for the Pentium chip. Henry Ford, Ford Motor & Alfred P. Sloan Jr. General Motors for standardization and giving the world a ride. George Eastman of Eastman Kodak for capturing the world on film, Asa G. Candler Coca- Cola for giving the world a Coke!
Howard Schultz, Starbuck for making water into liquid gold. John F. Welch Jr. General Electric for making home life easier. Raymond A. Kroc, McDonald’s for giving the world a burger. Frederick W. Smith Federal Express for delivering things. John D. Rockefeller Sr. Standard Oil for fueling it all.
On the political front …..Gandhi ..for the incredible and extraordinary concept of satyagraha’s non-violent protest to his battle for right and wrong and its contribution to Indian independence. Mandela for his adaptation of this and his certain knowledge of rights in bringing an end to Apartheid in South Africa. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson for the championing of democracy and the Religious Charter of Freedoms freeing minds around the earth. Underdogs like, Ho Chi Minh. A leader of astonishing quality and organizational skills who lead his nation to victory against two of the world’s great powers, France and the USA. Winston Churchill for his resolve and leadership during WW2
6. How would you motivate your team? A motivated team is a Happy team on the court and off. We would provide workplace strong monetary and personal incentives that promote, health, well-being, happiness including a 4-day workweek.
7. Which is your favourite book and why? I have many favourite books but enjoy biographies the most. The latest one I have been reading is called “Whatever the ODD”s- The Incredible story behind DLF” by K.P Singh with Ramesh Menon & Raman Swamy.
As it sheds light on our struggles in India.
The story chronicles the incredible multi-decadal, long and uphill battle of India’s Master Builder – KP Singh and highlights his incredible struggles against India’s ill-defined and unstructured Real Estate Market which only received a regulator via the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016
– Manoj C. Benjamin (Chairman – Huntington York Development Corporation)
Manoj Benjamin has over thirty years of extensive experience in business leadership and has held Senior Executive positions in real estate- development firms in Canada. Mr Benjamin has been involved for the last 17 years in the modernization of the infant real estate sector in the Indian market, including being recognized as the pioneer and concept leader of the privatized sustainable Green, Smart Cities concept in the Indian Nation under the Royal Garden City name in Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkatta and expected to expand to other Tier #1 and Tier #2 cities in India. A multi-billion-dollar initiative.
Website: www.HuntingtonYork.com
Interviewed By Pratibha Sahani