Kolte-Patil Developers promotes Gopal Sarda as group president

By Swet Sarika

  • 15 Jun 2016
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Kolte-Patil Developers Ltd has promoted Gopal Sarda as group president and chief executive officer for Mumbai, six months after Sujay Kalele quit as the company’s CEO.

Sarda will be responsible for business development, sales and marketing, corporate finance and investor relations, the Pune-based company said in a stock-exchange filing.

Sarda, a chartered accountant, was previously the company’s head of Mumbai operations. He joined the company in 2010 as senior manager of corporate finance and strategy at the Mumbai-listed developer.

According to a person familiar with the development, Sarda will handle a couple of more divisions besides Mumbai under the new role. "The company is going through a restructuring to carve out a role for him and clearly define the divisions that will directly fall under him,” the person said. 

Another person said that Sarda will be entrusted with the responsibility of overseeing operations in Mumbai, Bangalore and the home market of Pune as part of his extended role while other senior executives will handle the remaining markets. 

The development comes after Sujay Kalele quit as the company’s CEO to set up his own venture. Kalele worked at the company for six years starting 2010. An engineer by training, he has also worked with real estate consultancy firm JLL India in his career spanning over a decade. He recently set up a real estate focused startup that will offer end-to-end solutions to smaller and non branded developers. 

The developer, which has presence across residential, commercial and retail segments, recently hired Aditi Watve as chief operating officer to head operations and design and development. Prior to this, she worked with Pune-based realtor Paranjapee Schemes as COO for eight years.

Known for its residential projects, Kolte-Patil claims to have completed 1 crore sq ft of space across segments in Pune and Bangalore. It also has presence in Mumbai and Goa. The developer recently raised funding for residential projects from PE firms and through a public issue of non-convertible debentures. It raised Rs 120 crore from an affiliate of JP Morgan for a project in Mumbai through a bulk buying agreement and another Rs 58 crore from the real estate PE arm of Motilal Oswal for a Pune project. 

The real estate sector has seen quite a few movements at senior level lately. Nitin Goel, who worked with Milestone Capital as managing partner for over three years, recently moved out to join PE arm of financial services company Edelweiss. Cushman & Wakefield saw departure of managing director Sanjay Dutt, following which the commercial real estate services company hired former CEO of DTZ Anshul Jain as the head of India operations. 

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