LIC's maiden realty fund makes investments in Bangalore, Pune.

LIC Housing Finance Ltd's maiden real estate fund has made four investments in mid-income housing projects in Pune and Bangalore, including in one by entrepreneur Jaithirth Rao's Value and Budget Housing Corp. Pvt. Ltd. (VBHC), a top fund official said.

The Rs.530 crore fund, which finished raising the money last year in March, focuses on investing in housing projects, putting in Rs.50-70 crore in each transaction.

LICHFL Urban Development Fund will also invest part of the corpus in information technology (IT), IT-enabled services and warehousing projects. 'The investment focus will remain on mid-income housing, where there is no sluggishness and offtake is good,' chief executive A.K. Sharma said.

The fund will look to close 4-5 deals this year, investing around Rs.200 crore.

LIC's fund invested an undisclosed amount in VBHC's second project in Bangalore, in Kengeri.

VBHC used the money largely to acquire the land for building about 200 apartments, said a person familiar with the development, but didn’t want to be named.

The fund's second investment in Bangalore was in a project developed by city-based realty firm Mahaveer Groups.


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