Former US president Donald Trump's realty company The Trump Organisation will launch three to five high-end residential properties which are set to be signed up in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chandigarh and Ludhiana in 2023.
The company has an exclusive licensing agreement in the country through an association with the Delhi-based Tribeca Developers promoted by Kalpesh Mehta for the past ten years.
Tribeca will invest around Rs 2,500 crore in these three to five Trump-branded properties, Mehta told reporters at an event here on Tuesday in the presence of Donald Trump Jr who is the vice president of The Trump Organisation.
There are already four Trump-branded properties in the country, making India the largest market for them outside the US.
These four offer a saleable area of 2.6 million sqft. These are developed in association with Panchasheel builders in Pune (0.27 million sqft) which is entirely sold; with the Marcotech Developers in Mumbai which 90 per cent (0.56 million sqft) sold; with M3M group in Gurugram (1.36 million sqft ) that's almost ready and an under-construction project in Kolkata in association with Unimark group which has a saleable area of 0.42 million sqft), said Mehta, who studied together with the junior Trump in Wharton.
"We will sign up seven- eight projects investing around Rs 5,000 crore over the next 12 months. Of this half of the investment or Rs 2,500 crore will go into three-five Trump-branded projects for which we are also looking at new cities like Bengaluru and Hyderabad apart from Mumbai Pune and Delhi NCR," Mehta said.
Tribeca group chief executive Harshvardhan Prasad told PTI that they are also in discussions with developers in Chandigarh and Ludhiana for Trump projects.
Trump joined saying "we are so satisfied with our decade-long association with Mehta that we are only happy to extend our association with by lending our brand name to Trump-branded offices and villas."
He continued "during the past one decade we have seen Tribeca's development capabilities evolve to a level where it now rivals the best global luxury developers. He made India the largest market for our brand outside our home market in such a short span of time.”
Both Trump and Mehta refused to share the royalty payment details between them for lending the Trump brand name.
When asked how customers have been receiving the sales pitch since The Trump Organisation has landed in a web of legal tangles in the US for alleged tax evasion and fraudulent accounting practices, Mehta claimed that absolutely "there is no negative rub off at all. In fact, we increased the prices by almost 30 per cent since Trump left the presidency."
To a question Trump said if his father wins a second election in 2024 they will shutter the business during the presidency again "as we voluntarily did during the first term. Of course we took a huge hit but we will do that again".
Tribeca, which pioneered the concept of branded residential properties in the country ten years ago, has 6.5 million sqft of saleable area across five projects. Besides, it has three upcoming non-Trump projects - with around 2.73 million sqft across three projects in Pune.
