Bahrain’s Investcorp joins global funds in betting on Indian warehouses

Bahrain’s Investcorp joins global funds in betting on Indian warehouses

Dubai: Bahrain-based investment firm Investcorp is doubling down on warehouse investments in India, betting the nation’s manufacturing ambitions and e-commerce boom will fuel demand for logistics. Warehousing currently accounts for almost 16 per cent of the Bahrain-based firm’s $350 million real estate portfolio in India, and it’s planning to boost that share in the coming year, according to Ritesh Vohra, the firm’s real estate head in the nation. “Warehouses could end up being our biggest strategy in Indian real estate,” he said in an interview. Investcorp joins a flood of international capital investing in a sector that’s been buoyed by the government’s plan to transform India into a manufacturing hub, and a steady rise in online shopping on platforms such as Walmart’s Flipkart and Amazon.com. “Institutional capital is flowing in,” said Vohra. “Warehousing is where office space was 7-8 years ago.” The company, whose Indian real estate portfolio is currently dominated by residential property, last year deployed $55 million to back Chennai-based developer NDR Warehousing. That helped grow NDR’s stock of warehousing space to 14 million square feet from 9 million square feet. Private equity investment in Indian warehousing climbed 45 per cent to $1.9 billion in 2022 from the