Ambani: Houseful

Mumbai, Feb. 5: The exodus is about to begin: the last of the big corporate houses is preparing to shift its headquarters out of the cramped and hugely expensive tony business district of South Mumbai.

Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) had aired the plan last year. Now, it’s putting the plan into action.

RIL is looking to house its employees at two new addresses: the first is a corporate park that is being set up at the former plant of National Organic Chemical Industries Ltd (NOCIL) in Navi Mumbai which the group acquired two years ago; the second is a 29-storey project in suburban Mumbai.

The two new offices will house the group’s key officials in the petroleum, refining and retailing businesses.

RIL has farmed out contracts worth Australian $330 million to Leighton Holdings, Australia's largest property developer, to build the two projects.

Both projects will be ready in 2008.

Hindustan Lever is the other big house that is planning to shift its base to suburban Mumbai from Backbay Reclamation.

The trend had started a decade ago: several entities like ICICI Bank, Citigroup, Bayer, Wockhardt, Nicholas Piramal, and Pfizer have already shifted their headquarters to suburban Mumbai.

After the split in the Reliance empire in January 2006, it was inevitable that the Mukesh group would need to build a new corporate headquarters as Anil Ambani’s ADAG group had gained control of the Dhirubhai Ambani Knowledge Centre (DAKC) as part of the settlement.

Sources say RIL officials are now spread out in various offices across the city. While some are now housed at DAKC, others work out of Reliance Centre, which is where the younger scion is largely based. Other senior officials are located at Maker Chambers IV in Nariman Point.

In a notice sent to the Australian Stock Exchange today, Leighton said its wholly owned subsidiary — Leighton Asia (Southern) Ltd — has been awarded two building projects in Mumbai, worth a total of $260 million (Australian $330 million). The projects for Reliance Industries, it said, would include a $155 million corporate park and a $105 million high-rise building.

Although Leighton did not give out much details about the high-rise building, it said the Reliance Corporate Park would be a multi-facility precinct comprising office towers, retail mall, data centre, research and development centre, convention centre and support facilities.

“Phases 2 and 3 of the park, for which Leighton has been appointed, comprises six office blocks,” the company said.