By Pratap John

Chief Business Reporter

Multinational, multiproduct group Sobha is looking at opportunities in Qatar as part of its strategy to grow in a “promising region”, where it is already strong — in the UAE and Oman.

“I am certainly looking at viable projects in Qatar, besides Saudi Arabia and Kuwait,” said Sobha Group founder and chairman, P N C Menon. “I am optimistic about prospects in the region, which has many dynamic economies including Qatar, the UAE and Oman,” Menon said.

Seeing “great potential for quality construction” in the Indian real estate market, Menon founded Sobha Developers in 1994.

Menon started his entrepreneurial journey from very humble beginnings. He set up an interior decoration firm in Oman in 1976.

Today, Sobha Group has significant interests and investments in many countries in real estate development, contracting, metal works, building services, manufacturing of construction materials and architectural and engineering design and consultancy.

In India, Sobha Limited is a Rs24bn ($400mn) company with primary focus on residential and contractual projects.

In 2006, Sobha Developers Ltd — India went public through an IPO, which created history when the issue got oversubscribed a “record” 126 times.

“Our India operations are expected to grow to $1bn by 2020,” said Menon, an India-born Oman national.

“Outside India, we do in excess of $1.5bn now,” Menon said in an interview with Gulf Times here. 

In Dubai, Sobha is currently working on two premium projects — Sobha Hartland and Meydan Sobha LLC FZ.

Sobha Hartland, a significant mixed-use development at the “Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum City”, is, just three kilometres from Burj Khalifa.

This development comprises 8mn sq ft of land area, a significant portion of which is dedicated to green living as well as many villas and numerous low- mid- and high-rise apartments, schools, hotels, a club house and retail spaces.

Meydan Sobha is an equally-split joint venture between Meydan Group and Sobha Group, responsible for developing over 47mn sq ft of prime freehold land in the heart of Dubai.“Both projects are expected to be completed by 2020,” Menon said.

Headquartered in Bangalore, Sobha Limited India is one of the largest and only backward integrated real estate players in the country. The backward integration model means that the company has “all the competencies and in-house resources to deliver a project from conceptualisation to completion”.

“We consistently deliver 7-8mn sq ft a year in India,” Menon said.

Recently, Sobha Limited has been named among India’s 17 new Global Growth Companies (GGC) in South Asia by the World Economic Forum (WEF).

Sobha is the only Indian real estate company to be recognised by the World Economic Forum and is one among the only three listed entities out of the companies that have been honoured.

A philanthropist with a deep-felt commitment to social responsibility, Menon has been engaged in numerous charitable causes; although he refuses to call it charity.

For Menon, it is but “an obligation to give back to the society a share of what he has earned.”

Menon, who was in Doha recently to introduce Sobha projects to Qataris and Qatar-based investors, met several dignitaries in the country.