FINLAY MILLS Offers shock Textile Corp

The National Textile Corporation (NTC), which has a history of attracting aggressive bids, for the first time got bids quoting less than half the excepted amount for its Finlay Mills land at Parel.

As bids for the 10.5 acre land were opened on Friday, NTC officials were in for disappointment, as all four bidders quoted rates far below expectations. “We were expecting Rs 1,065 crore for the land,” said Ramachandran Pillai, chairman and managing director of NTC Ltd.

The highest bid of Rs 405 crore was made by Nine Paradise Hotels Private Limited (an associate of DB Realty). The other bidders included Parnee Developers (Satellite Group), RM Bhatter and Tata Realty and Infrastructure. The NTC will now invite tenders again a month later.

Since the first of NTC mill lands — the scarce parcels of large plots in prime areas of Mumbai — was put on the block four years ago, the plots had been drawing jaw-dropping bids. In fact, the mill land sales were cited as the prime reason for the price rise in Mumbai.

“Kohinoor Mills no 3 was sold in 2005 at Rs 15,000 a sq ft. In the last three years, there has been a significant change in rates. Still, the highest offer we got this time is not more than Rs 10,000 per sq ft,” said Pillai.

He said unlike the other NTC plots, in case of Finlay Mills, the developer could commercially exploit the entire plot without handing over two-thirds of the open space to BMC or MHADA. “In this plot, built up area is more, with very little open space available,” he explained.

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