Amarchand and P&C Legal steer StanCharts’ investment in Mahindra Lifespace Developers

Real estate giant, Mahindra Lifespace Developers has recently formed a joint venture with the SCM Real Estate (Singapore) Pvt Ltd, the investment arm of Standard Chartered Bank..Amarchand Mangaldas advised Standard Chartered Bank with a team led by Partner Leena Chacko along with Rituparno Bhattacharya and Prateek Shroff..P&C Legal acted for Mahindra Lifespace Developers with a team led by Partner Vishnu Jerome and Sameer Sibal..As per the official press release provided by P&C Legal, the “combined investment commitment” across the deal is approximately Rs. 1,000 crore over multiple projects. The residential projects will be developed by Watsonia Developers Ltd, in which both entities hold an equal stake..Speaking to Bar & Bench, on whether the deal is a harbinger for greater foreign participation in the real estate market, Amarchand Partner Leena Chacko says, “We are seeing clients evince interest in good real estate projects. In any case there is always interest in projects with the right partners and viable projects”..Talking about the current FDI regime, Leena says, “It will be good to have clarity and consistency in views on certain aspects of the FDI regime in real estate, including exit related rules and the kind of instruments that are permissible for such investments, taking into account that these are mainly investments in special purpose entities.”