The Aditya Birla group recently said that it has plans to float a fund for real estate with the corpus likely to be over Rs 500 crore. Industry sources also said that GMR Infrastructure is also planning to float a $1billion infrastructure and real estate fund and that preliminary talk are on with institutions and banks.

“The sector is currently hiring for front-office, back-office and operational roles. The levels are comparable to the first wave of aggressive hiring witnessed in the late nineties. We have seen over 1,500 cumulative openings being tendered in the first quarter of 2008,” said Monisha Advani, managing director, Randstad Holdings India (former Emmay HR), a hiring consultancy.

Though regulatory clarifications are still awaited, fund houses are already on the hunt for key personnel, who have the caliber to look after investments in real estate.
Milind Barve, managing director of HDFC Mutual Fund, says his firm has already hired 5 to 6 people in the past 6 months for realty funds.

“Two of these would come from within the group i.e. Housing Development and Finance Corporation, while another one has a finance background,” Barve said.
A fourth has been inducted to look after the tax issues on the deal structuring side, while the fifth one will take care of legal issues linked to due diligence of a property before investing in it. Rival Birla Sun Life is on the lookout too.

“Not aggressively, but we are seeking people who have worked with property consultants and investment banking firms,” said an official who did not wish to be named.