KP Singh - DLF will always be family-owned but professionally run

A visitor to DLF Chairman Kushal Pal Singh’s office on the 9th floor of the company’s Parliament Street building in the capital gets a glimpse of some rare maps, among the earliest ever drawn, of “Hindoostan” or the “East Indies”, depending on whether the cartographer was Portuguese or British.

Singh’s desk is also littered with old navigation equipment and in the backdrop is a flag of the tiny, yet super-rich principality of Monaco, of which he is consul general.

Flush with the success of having overseen the country’s largest-ever public issue (over Rs 9,000 crore), the 75-year-old builder of modern Gurgaon tells Nayantara Rai and Siddharth Zarabi that he isn’t tired at the end of it all. “It’s all a part of the game. After all, it is the beginning for DLF.” Excerpts from the interview:

So, are you pleasantly surprised with the response?

It would be unfair for me to say I never expected it. I expected it to be subscribed fully. Renowned foreign investors have put in millions and that too in these adverse times. If you ask how much I was expecting to raise, I could never answer. But, just see the high quality and magnitude of the investment.

You said “adverse times”. Are you referring to the run-up to the issue and to those who said the stock is overpriced?

No, not at all. Real estate is a sunrise sector. People do not understand how to evaluate these stocks. Incorrectly, people talk about land banks.

The other day I saw an analyst on TV say that one of the negatives of DLF is that it is too highly concentrated in Gurgaon. What is he talking about? It is common sense that Gurgaon will continue to flourish. Connectivity with the expressway and the Delhi Metro is only going to help Gurgaon. We are sitting on gold and platinum.

Will KP Singh and DLF make another Gurgaon ever?

In my lifetime, that is not possible, but I hope my son and grandchildren would. And I know my son (the 48-year-old Rajiv Singh) has plans for it.

You aren’t telling us about the next Gurgaon…

I cannot share that with you…people will then start buying land there! You have no idea how difficult it was for me to make DLF City successful. Nobody except I had faith in the project.

Whoever thought people would live 20 km outside of Delhi? It was initially called DLF Qutab Enclave. Why did I call it that? It was just a marketing gimmick…making the township sound as if it was an enclave of Qutab Minar, even though it was 15 km away. I had a vision and convinced people (to buy it).

So will Rajiv do it then?

I know he is my son, but if I divorce myself from that relationship, I have to say that he is one of the greatest visionaries. Just imagine what he has done. Anybody can be a builder, but only visionaries can be developers.

My son is an alumnus of MIT. When he joined the business 15-20 years ago, he told me, “Dad, this is not the way to do it. We need to shift from plotted development to high-rise buildings.” Outside of Bombay, where had you seen group housing? DLF pioneered high-rises and today everyone is following us.

Two years ago, Rajiv got McKinsey to restructure the company. They did a great job and we paid them a lot of money! Then Rajiv gave a $13 million order to IBM for our systems.

Today, we have over 200 subsidiaries across India and we are one of the most automated companies. We prepare audited results of all subsidiaries here within 10 days of the financial year ending—it is a different thing that now they will be prepared in five days.

Will DLF always be controlled by the family?

What is wrong with family control? We have done very well. DLF will always be family-owned but will be a professionally run company.

In hindsight, could the issue size have been larger?

No. That was not required. If we had done that you people would have criticised it….We can always come back for a fresh round.