Real estate and construction

Our service offerings for the Real Estate and Construction industry

The Indian infrastructure (construction) and real estate industry is playing key role in the nation’s progress towards achieving the status of ‘developed nation’ from a ‘developing nation’. However, there is a consensus that infrastructure inadequacies would constitute a significant constraint in realising our growth potential. An ambitious program of infrastructure investment has therefore been evolved for strengthening and consolidating recent infrastructure and real estate related initiatives. To supplement the estimates of Gross Capital Formation in infrastructure, the Planning Commission has made projections of public-private investments in each sector, basing these on a detailed review of sectoral trends and projected expenditures.

The Indian real estate sector plays a significant role in the country's economy, which is second only to agriculture in terms of employment generation and contributes heavily towards the gross domestic product (GDP). About five per cent of the country's GDP is contributed to by the housing sector. Almost 80 per cent of real estate developed in India is residential space, the rest comprising of offices, shopping malls, hotels and hospitals. According to the Tenth Five-Year-Plan, there was a shortage of 22.4 million dwelling units. Thus, over the next 10 to 15 years, 80 to 90 million housing dwelling units will have to be constructed with a majority of them catering to middle- and lower-income groups.

Between April 2000 and about end of 2014, the construction development sector received about $24 bn, constituting 10 per cent of the overall FDI into the country during the period.

How we can help: RSM provides a wide range of professional services to the real estate and construction industry in the following areas: Techno-commercial and / or concurrent internal audits for the real estate sector Internal, special audits to ensure improved efficiency, internal processes and controls IT and IT security advisory services and related audits of hardware, connectivity and software Designing and setting up enterprise wide Standard Operating Processes (SOPs) and systems for uniform working Direct and indirect tax advisory and representation services Concurrent audits of toll plazas (even if they are located at remote places) with focus on cash collection, vehicular movements, security aspects, etc

RSM in India is consistently ranked amongst India’s top six accounting and consulting groups and RSM globally is the seventh largest network of audit, tax and consulting firms Extensive experience in catering to the real estate and construction industry in advisory, taxation and accounting matters across functions and borders Multi-disciplinary team of professionals comprising of Chartered Accountants, Management Graduates, Engineers, Company Secretaries, Cost Accountants and Law Graduates

To find out more about how and why we invest in construction and real estate, read our strategy. With people increasingly migrating to cities, good quality real estate is needed to ensure inclusive urbanisation, fuel economic growth, and provide safe, resilient and sustainable settlements, supporting at least five of the Sustainable Development Goals. Investment opportunities in the sector are constrained by a host of factors, including lack of large-scale developers, poor financing options, inadequate infrastructure, maturing laws and enforcement, and pressure to limit the sector’s share of emissions. As a young portfolio for CDC we have two main objectives. One is sector development, by investing in specific sub-sectors where there is imbalance between demand and supply, in particular, industrial and logistics, low-cost housing, student housing and budget business hotels. The second objective is market strengthening, as we know this is a fragmented sector and best practices are often missing. We are looking to provide technical expertise to support the adoption of good standards of safety, transparency and sustainability. In terms of sector development, we have three priorities. First, to create socially inclusive sustainable communities with low-cost housing and other social infrastructure real estate such as convenience retail, education and healthcare facilities. We have a fund investment in an affordable housing platform which does this in less-developed urban locations in India. Second is to support the growth of industrial space for production and distribution. This will encourage the foreign investment and private sector participation that is needed to expand each country’s trade and industrial activity. An example of this is our direct investment in Africa Logistics Properties, a specialised industrial real estate developer, to build warehousing parks across East Africa. Third is to develop a business-enabling infrastructure and ecosystem that makes it possible for people to travel for trade and work, not just in the capital cities but smaller cities too. We have a direct investment in a budget hotel platform, Onomo, aimed at servicing the business traveller base in Africa, which is expanding across more challenging locations. Our last three investment priorities cut across all of these, where the objective is to improve the institutional environment. In doing so, we aim to encourage others to adopt and implement globally accepted best practices in business conduct and to strengthen private developers’ capacity. We want to mobilise more capital and we know that our investment in a project has the potential to attract other investors. And we want to support the convergence of environmental sustainability and technology through innovative construction materials, for example, as well as by incorporating sustainability standards, such as IFC’s EDGE. To find out more about how and why we invest in construction and real estate, read our strategy.