Nesco Ltd., which owns and operates the Bombay Exhibition Centre (BEC), one of India’s largest private sector exhibition and convention centres in suburban Mumbai, has finalised plans to modernise and expand the facility with an investment of ₹325 crore.
In the same land parcel, the company operates an information technology (IT) park called Nesco IT Park. Nesco has now planned to build a new infotech park building spread over 40 lakh sq. ft at a cost of about ₹1,800 crore. and is working to get plan approval to start the construction by 2021.
“The estimated budget for the project is ₹1,800 crore for 46 lakh sq. ft. of development. This will include office space, amenities, F&B area as well a 300-room 4 star business hotel. It is being designed by a Singapore based architect,” Mr. Patel said,
“We have decided to progressively build new exhibition halls, replacing existing halls and convention halls. The estimated cost is around ₹325 crore,” Sumant Patel, chairman, said in an interview. Mr. Patel said designs for the new Centre have been prepared by a renowned architect from Australia and work would commence in 2021. Nesco was among the first in the private sector to set up an exhibition centre in 1992 in Mumbai and since then, it had been hosting several national and international exhibitions. The company said it had a market share of 18%-20%.
He said all these investments will be made from the company’s internal sources. “The cash flows of about ₹2,000-2,200 crore will be staggered over a period of 5-7 years. As a policy, we will not be going in for any external debt and all our outflows will be funded by our internal accruals in its entirety,” he said. “Our current cash reserves of about ₹700 crore will be used to fund these projects in addition to yearly net inflows from our various business,” he added.
He said the exhibitions industry has been growing every year with increasing demand for more space from Indian and foreign exhibitions organisers. To cater to this the company is increasing exhibitions halls space at the venue. Though no exhibitions were held since the outbreak of COVID-19, he said a turnaround is expected in Q4 of this fiscal.
