Yash Nagpal, 56 years old NRI from UK, managing director of Navision India
bought 6,500 sq ft duplex penthouse at Gur-gaon, Haryana

New Delhi, August 15, 2004
Ranvir Chopra

Yash Nagpal, 56 years old NRI from UK can see both the towering city centre and the vast expanse of the green of Gur-gaon, Haryana, from his sixth-floor penthouse in Laburnum. It’s a spectacular view from here.

Nagpal, managing director of Navision India, decided to buy a three-bedroom apartment in Gurgaon two years ago and the duplex penthouse, he says, is the best move he has made. The price, however, he declined to divulge. “But I have renovated everything in this house—from the staircase to bathrooms, to bedrooms—spending as much money as I had spent on buying the apartment itself,” he says. Now his 6,500 sq ft penthouse has a bedroom converted into a bar lounge. “What is nice about this penthouse is that the most important rooms have uninterrupted view of outside through floor to ceiling glass windows. And you’re way above the ground,” Nagpal boasts.

He quickly adds, “I could have bought a farmhous, but then I would have to hire a number of people for its maintenance and security of it. Here you just lock the main door and your entire house is safe.”

The Forbes magazine reports: “Last year was a remarkable year for real estate (in the US), but possibly the most remarkable sale of all was that of an unfinished penthouse at the new Time Warner building in Manhattan, which sold for $42.5 million (approximately Rs 191.25 crore).”

SRIKUMAR BONDYOPADHYAY & BELLA JAISINGHANI OF FINANCIAL of financial Express wrote that back home in India, a penthouse in Suneeta Apartment, a 12-storyed building at Mala-bar Hill in south Mumbai, was sold for Rs 30.5 crore (at a price of Rs 38,000 per sq ft!) in 2002.

But then why wealthy people pay such hefty premium to buy their roof-top space? Notes the Forbes magazine report, “...The hefty price was paid despite the fact that the penthouse was much smaller than other properties...What it does have, however—as anyone who has ever gazed with wonder from the top floor of a Manhattan apartment building knows—is something undeniably majestic and awe-inspiring. You’re on the top, looking down on everyone else, nothing else between you and the heavens. For that sense of space and superiority, many buyers are willing to pay a premium for a penthouse...”

For K C Mehra, Managing Director, Forbes Gokak, and his wife, the seclusion of penthouse living is more attractive “It is like the luxury of living in an independent bungalow,” say Mrs Mehra.

But for Niranjan Hiranan-dani, managing director, Hiranandani Constructions, investment in penthouse is for living life kingsize. He says, “I will be soon moving to Odyssey Apartments, in Powai. It has a beautiful view apart from a swimming pool and a jacuzzi.”

Vijay Crishna, managing director, Godrej GE, however, evens out the penthouse advantages with its drawbacks. He says, “I live on the top floor of the 26-storeyed Grand Paradi Apartments at Kemps Corner, Mumbai, and the penthouse offers a unique 360-degree view of the surrounding area. The apartment is set on a hill so we get a fabulous view from the top floor. But the wind is strongest in our apartment. When it rains, the water tends to come into the house. And when the lift breaks down, God help us for we have to climb 26 floors to get home!”

Penthouses are particularly popular with Bollywood stars. Sushmita Sen has a rooftop jacuzzi in her penthouse apartment in Mumbai. From Hrithik Roshan’s ninth floor penthouse, Palasso, in Juhu, one can see the Mumbai skyline of highrise buildings on the one side and the Indian Ocean on the other. Then there are many. And the prices of these penthouses in south Mumbai with its golden triangle of Malabar Hill, Beach Candy and Carmichael Road, are the most expensive—start from Rs 18,000 per sq ft and go up to Rs 25,000 per sq ft for flats in buildings such as Usha Kiran, Hill Park, Kamal Mahal.

Even at that price, demand still rules very high. K L Chugh, ex-chairman of ITC Ltd, had to settle for an executive villa floor in Gurgaon One project instead of a penthouse he was looking for. “He came for a penthouse, but by then all of our 16 penthouses were sold out,” says Prodipta Sen, vice-president, Marketing & Sales, Alpha Buildtech. The builder has just started the construction works. It is offering penthouses priced between Rs 95 lakh and Rs 1.28 crore.

DLF Universal and Unitech Ltd too have experienced the same trend. Omaxe Constru-ctions, which is yet to start the ground breaking works for its The Forest project in Noida, have already sold out 11 of its 14 penthouses, priced at Rs 2.75 crore each. The builder is offering landscaped terrace garden for each of its duplex penthouses which will also have a swimming pool and a health gym in the master bedroom. Clear your throat and tell the builder you have a few crore burning a hole in your bespoke breeches and the place is yours!

Yash Nagpal

Competition from leading business solution providers SAP, Siebel and Baan don't faze Yash Nagpal. The managing director of Navision Software India loves challenges, in fact. And it was a challenge that made this UK-based NRI set up Navision in India in October 2001. Territorial representative of Navision, Denmark, Nagpal's company specialises in providing end-to-end business solutions like ERP and SCM (supply chain management).

Nagpal saw immense potential in Navision's products while he was working for Tec UK, an arm of Toshiba Corp., in the early 1990s. He quit Tec and established Navision UK in 1995 with an initial investment of £500,000 (around Rs 3.4 crore). The venture turned profitable, and in 1999 Nagpal sold Navision UK to Navision Denmark. Though he remained managing director, Nagpal preferred returning to India despite warnings of a saturated business solutions market.

His market research had showed that only 750 firms were using ERP solutions, and were not very pleased with implementation issues. Having steered his firm into uncharted waters as he sees Indian SMEs ready for the big leap, Nagpal invested $8 million (Rs 39 crore) in 2001 in Indian operations.

Microsoft Corporation had acquired Danish software firm Navision in May 2002 in a $1.33 billion deal. Though Navision's business in most of the countries have already been merged with the respective Microsoft operations, India is one of the few countries where integration has not taken place. Navision India is as exclusive distributor of Navision solutions in India and a major part of the equity in the venture is owned by its current managing director Yash Nagpal.

Yash Nagpal, 56, UK