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Craig Phillips: Indian growth is a sustainable trend |
The firm will seek opportunities in global asset-based financial products, with the first fund focusing on real estate investments in southern India. Ptarmigan will join the other 35 big-ticket foreign funds that have entered the Indian market in search of good yields. A study by India Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF) predicted that another 20 funds would commit themselves to an interest in India in the first half of 2007, which would translate into $10 billion in foreign direct investment in real estate. With this inflow, one question that has been raised is whether the market can sustain such capital flows – are prices going to carry on increasing?
Phillips, who left Morgan Stanley in April 2006, is confident: "India’s economic growth is 9% per annum and the demographics and attractive labour force are all factors that make me convinced this is a sustainable trend," he says. "International investment was first allowed into the country only two years ago and so in the grand scale of things we are only really scratching the surface of potential growth in the region."