18 March 2008  - Day 1 - Tuesday

Registration & Welcome Tea

Vision for a Vibrant Town Planning & Environmental Sustainability
Jaipal Reddy, Urban Development, Minister, GOI

Shopping And The City: Taking India Forward - Speedily and Responsibly

With the opening of over 100 of them over the last decade, and another 1000 expected in the next 5 years, shopping centres are impacting our towns and cities like it had never been imagined. They are becoming our new community spaces, driving consumption and becoming a symbol of our Urbanisation. They are generating employment, both during and after development, boosting consumption and taking our economy to greater heights.

However, they face significant risks & challenges on one hand, particularly in terms of fitting appropriately into our urban planning vision and infrastructure fronts, while on the other, they have a significant responsibility of growing in an environmentally friendly way. This august panel shall discuss the benefits, imperatives and challenges of shopping centres, as also socially and environmentally responsible development, in tune with the vision for our cities.

Expert Panel:

B S Nagesh, MD, Shoppers' Stop
Harshvardhan Neotia, MD, Bengal Ambuja
Sonica Malhotra, ED, MBD Group

Michael Holland, CEO, Assetz Property Group

Anchor: Suresh Singaravelu, President & Head - Infrastructure, Reliance Retail

With over Rs. 100,000 crores (USD 25-30 billion) expected to be invested into the development of shopping centres across India in the coming 3 years, it is critical for Financial Institutions, Analysts, Developers and all stakeholders to work closely and be on the same page, when it comes to accurate financial valuations and analysis, at every stage of a project. With the lease-only model clearly the way forward for shopping centres, structured finance and cash flow management is a significant challenge, we all must conquer.. the Panel of Experts discusses the Indian and Global best practices, risks, opportunities and the way forward for India.

Global Investor Perspective: Globally, Shopping Centres are amongst the most stable and high-yield asset classes, making them a preferred investment class for pension funds, REITS, and Financial Institutions. With international capital now exploring this asset class for investing into, in India, there are serious concerns on many areas, including risks, development quality, occupier stablity and income projections. A panel of fund managers representing international capital share their perspective on Shopping Centres as an asset class in India, vis-à-vis the rest of the world, including their concerns, risk perceptions, exit options, tips for developers and insights into their way of looking at Shopping Centres for Investment.

The Indian Fund Perspective: Having actively invested in Residential and Commercial assets in India, and the India Growth Engine at large, Indian Real estate Funds are now actively exploring Shopping Centre projects for investments. However, they are treading slowly and have their own apprehensions about the mall revolution. Some of the large players come together to share their success stories, apprehensions and point of view, for the Shopping Centre Industry.

Session Leader: Ajoy Veer Kapoor, MD, Saffron Asset Advisors

Expert Panel:

Avnish Singh, Head, GE Real Estate
Nipun Sahni, Head Global Commercial RE, DSP Merrill Lynch
Sushil Vaswani, MD, Lubert Adler India
Sumit Anand, Director, Lehman Brothers
Raj Singh Gehlot, CMD, Ambience Group

Developing Shopping Centres in India is fraught with risks & challenges, ranging from regulatory and infrastructural issues to understanding demographics, developing leasing strategies, occupancy/ absorption fears, competition, people issues, managing budgets, timelines and quality, valuation ambiguities and a lack of knowledge. Indian Shopping Centre developers discuss the key challenges they have faced and are facing, in developing malls in India, and their key learnings.

Expert Panel:
Shishir Baijal, MD, Kshitij Investment Advisory Co
Vikram Bakshi, MD, McDonald’s (North & East India)
Rahul Saraf, MD, Forum Projects
Nikhil Chaturvedi, MD, Prozone
Rakesh Biyani, Director, Pantaloon Retail

Moderated by: Sanjay Dutt, Jt. MD, Cushman & Wakefield India

Retail Planning is a specialised discipline that takes into account centre-planning fundamentals such as store-front visibility from across levels, vertical and horizontal circulation/ traffic flow, ingress/egress, parking lot comfort,  area efficiency etc, as also market dynamics such as trade & tenant mixes/ leasing strategy, theming, zoning etc, to develop a layout that succeeds.

Given India’s nascent and fast evolving market conditions, the challenge for developers and retail planners is to accurately gauge the market, and plan the shopping centre appropriately, to compete and succeed with the occupiers as well as consumers, in order to achieve market success. This session brings retail planners and architects from across the world, who have worked on Indian projects, to present what they feel, holds the key to success when it comes to India.. their learnings, both from across the world and from India, and their advise to Indian developers, occupiers, financial institutions, marketers and other shopping centre professionals.

Building The Mall: Quickly, Cost Effectively, and of high quality : While planning may have its own challenges, delivery of project, is an even bigger one. The management of timelines, costs, quality has a large financial impact and good project management is indispensable tool to achieve the objectives of development. Experts handling millions of sqft across India will  present their perspectives on the challenges, lessons learnt and the success factors, for delivering Shopping centre projects on time, within budgets and of high quality.

Presentations:
Ro Shroff, Principal, Callison, USA
Peter McCaffery, Director, Benoy, Hong Kong
Stefan Zachary, Managing Partner, Zachary Designs, UK
Sankey Prasad, MD, Synergy