Rameswar Rao Jupally

The sprawling office of the privately-held My Home Group at Hitec City in Hyderabad is affluent, yet subtle. A tall man clad in a simple white shirt greets with a namaskar and goes back to signing a bunch of cheques. The red tilak on his forehead characterises his signature style. Rameswar Rao Jupally, founder and chairman of My Home Group, is a busy man these days. But the transition from a homeopath to a realtor happened by chance. During his early days as a practitioner, Jupally got a chance to sell a plot that he had bought for Rs.95,000 at Rs.2 lakh, within three months. The profit lured him into the property business, leading to the creation of My Home Constructions in 1986. The entry coincided with the IT boom that swept the region, eventually boosting realty prices. “I have never looked back ever since,” recalls Jupally. Today, it is hard to miss the My Home signboard if you are looking at buying a house in Hyderabad. The group is currently valued at $1 billion with a presence in realty, cement and power. As expected, all of Jupally’s wealth is tied up in his realty business.

It’s not surprising that Jupally swears by real estate. “Realty is the only ‘real’ asset. It’s the safest and most rewarding as demand for real estate will never end,” says Jupally, whose construction company clocks a turnover of Rs.650 crore. Today, the group owns over 2,000 acres of land in and around Hyderabad.

Cement is the other business where his wealth is tied up and also happens to be an asset which Jupally encashed by selling 50% to Irish company CRH in 2008. Proceeds from the sale were initially deployed in debt funds and tax-free bonds, keeping liquidity in consideration during the period of crisis, and was later deployed into real estate.

Beyond real estate and cement, the 61-year-old has investments in power (70 MW captive units) and a small investment in a privately-held pharma company, which is into oncology and critical care segment in Hyderabad. “We are looking at entering pharma as a bulk drug player, so we are testing waters with this investment,” says Jupally. NTV, which airs devotional channels in Andhra, is another small investment made by Jupally. “It’s not significant though,” he adds. In the coming year, Jupally is looking to buy stressed assets in infra and construction space. “Our long term objective is to invest in our core business,” says Jupally, who has set sights on a group valuation of $5 billion in the coming decade.