Mr. Deepak Premnarayen

Executive Chairman & Founder, ICS Group

Our businesses today have a synergy; they all are associated with Realty.

ICS has had the ability to identify businesses ahead of their time for India. We were associated with the first PPP project for OM of toll roads, NTBCL.

Around this time Kunal moved back to India and he was very bullish on the Realty sector. We strategically decided to set up verticals in mall management, architecture, asset management, car parking and hospitality. All these businesses were amongst the earliest if not the first entrants in India.

For each of these businesses we identified and set up JVs with amongst the leaders in their space. The journey of launching the ventures meant, rock solid conviction in the India opportunity, having full financial commitment with no signs of profits over a seven-year horizon. This meant having chieftains who were entrepreneurs, highly motivated and shared our belief in the opportunity. It meant keeping our partner's faith in the businesses and having staying power.

Our major strengths have been the synergies in the businesses, namely Realty. This meant dealing with developers who started with one vertical viz. Bentel and then were introduced to PPZ, Secure, Asset management and now that is helping Ayana. They now see ICS as a one stop partner. This also carries the risk of a business not delivering and thus hurting the other verticals, this is where the right team is a vital plus.

Lastly, it also means having the right people who can deliver as the environment is going to be highly competitive. The entrepreneurial and owner-manager culture and encouraging innovation has been critical for ICS and I am very confident of the space we are in, will see tremendous growth after our current phase of consolidation.