Where opportunities in real estate present themselves, so do therelevant agencies. When the Indian property market started to heat up in the mid 1990s, UK firms such as Knight Frank and Colliers CRE set up shop there to cash in on the increasing numbers of businesses taking an interest in outsourcing.
Both companies are now firmly established in the country, and are being joined by more UK agents which see that, despite recent negative reports, the Indian market is still a lucrative one.
Working conditions for the agents are similar to those in the UK. But salaries do vary for the Indian agents, and clearly they are notgoing to earn the same as agents working in London and the UK.
In Jones Lang LaSalle’s Mumbai office, part of the pay is based on client satisfaction. As James Knowles, JLL’s head of west India offices explains: “The bonus for a manager in corporate solutions is broken down into client satisfaction, his work and revenue. The bonus isn’t just earned doing deals.”
EG did a straw poll of the UK’s top 10 companies, as rated in last year’s EG top 85 surveyors by UK turnover, to find out who is in India and who is not – and why not.
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CBRE CBRE, which opened its first office in India in 1994, claims to be the first independent international real estate consultancy to set up in the Indian subcontinent. The company has main offices in Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai as well as other locations. CBRE has more than 550 staff in India who have dealt with more than 10m sq ft. It has more than 5.5m sq ft in projects under indirect management and more than 21m sq ft under direct management. It has no comment about plans for expansion. Colliers CRE Colliers has big plans to expand in India. Opening its first office in 1994, it now has four offices in Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi and Mumbai, and more than 90 staff. Akshaya Kumar, Colliers’ managing director in India, says the company will open two further offices in Hyderabad and Calcutta in the next two years. Kumar is recruiting up to five staff from Colliers’ UK offices. Cushman & Wakefield The company has been operating in India since 1997. Starting with two offices, in Delhi and Mumbai, it now has 350 staff spread over four offices, the most recent openings being in Bangalore and Chennai. CW also has what joint managing director Chan Chakravarti calls corporate client assignments in at least 25 secondary and tertiary locations across the country. Chakravarti says Cushman & Wakefield is aiming to double its workforce over the next three years. “We are a conservative firm,” he says. “Our objective is to crawl, then walk, then run, because we want to make an investment in people.” Even so, he says the success of the company is not measured by the size of its staff but by its financial performance. “We are debt free, and our dividend has increased by 32% over the past four years,” he says. DTZ DTZ is a new arrival to the Indian market. It opened its first office in Bangalore in July 2004 and now has an office in Delhi. It employs a total of 22 people. Ankur Srivastava, managing director of DTZ in India, says the decision to open was purely client led. “Our global clients are increasingly viewing India as an integral part of their property portfolios and, in order to ensure that we provide services that were in sync with DTZ’s global best practices, we had to enter the market,” he says. The company specifically opted for Bangalore because, as Srivastava says, “being centrally located allows us to service client requirements in Chennai and Hyderabad. “Delhi as a second destination allows us to provide a countrywide footprint to our clients. DTZ is going to keep growing. Chennai and Mumbai and Pune, which is outside Mumbai, are the next offices to open.” Jones Lang LaSalle The company opened its first office in India in 1998. Since then, it has gone from strength to strength. It now has six offices with a total of 850 staff. James Knowles, head of west India offices, says the company felt it was necessary to consolidate its Asian presence “to enhance its standing within the Indian market. “We wanted to give our global and regional clients true coverage across Asia Pacific,”says Knowles. The company has plans to open at least another two offices, and is targeting the northern cities of Chandigharh and Calcutta. Knight Frank Knight Frank has four offices in India – in Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai and Pune – and employs a total of 255 staff. The company opened its first office in the country in September 1995 “to tap into the emerging market and the country’s vast potential for real estate services”, says a spokesperson. The company spokesman says it chose to open an office in Mumbai because “it is the financial capital of India, where most of the corporates are headquartered. Mumbai is very conducive towards new services.”Though we have offices in four cities in India, we have operations in more than 14 cities. These are serviced through associates. As the market grows and matures, we will look to add more services under the facilities management umbrella, such as energy audit and space planning.” GVA Grimley A company spokesman says the company is considering opening an office in India, although no time scale has yet been made. In answer to whether it has missed out on business opportunities by not having a presence in the country before now, the spokesman says “not at all”. “You have to take a view on the options and opportunities in the country,” he says. King Sturge King Sturge has affiliates in India with which it works if and when it gets business in the country. Questions about why King Sturge did not have an office in India have not been answered. Lambert Smith Hampton LSH is not in India, and there were no answers to the questions of whether it would be in the future. Savills Group chief executive Aubrey Adams says the company is preparing to form an affiliation this year with a company already working in India. “This is driven by client reaction,” he says. “There’s money trying to get into India, and Savills is very interested in the investment side.” Additional research by Laura Hession |
