Chapter 409 Sur Real Estate
Of Ron's businesses, the only one worth mentioning in New Delhi is Sun TV.
As India's largest private television station, it brought Ron extraordinary exposure.
Most people in New Delhi heard about his deeds through Sun TV, and they don’t actually have a very intuitive impression of Sur Electric.
There are no electrical appliance factories, power plants, cement factories, international schools or Sur Hospital here.
To put it bluntly, there is no real industry and the presence is not strong.
In order to make up for this shortcoming, Ron thought that Sur Real Estate was the most suitable choice.
This is a new group that will be established this year, focusing on real estate development and infrastructure construction.
It can be broken down into residential development, commercial real estate, industrial park construction, and urban operations, and may also involve retail in the future.
The five-star hotels, luxury apartments and power plants in Uttar Pradesh have been completed one after another, and he plans to transfer the team to New Delhi to establish the headquarters of Sur Real Estate.
The first project is the Sunshine Five-Star Hotel. How can a capital city not have Mr. Sur’s industry?
After using a lot of connections, Ron finally got a piece of land in the middle of India Gate and Zongtong Mansion, near the north roundabout of Responsibility Avenue.
The land is not big, but it is more than enough to build a five-star hotel.
This is a prime location, and the land purchase alone cost more than 20 million US dollars, totaling 1 billion rupees.
It's even more exaggerated than the one in Mumbai. Considering the subsequent hotel construction and decoration, it will take at least 200 million US dollars.
The cost is high, and it may take many years to recoup the investment.
But this is just a show, even if it loses money it won't be a big deal. Once the hotel is completed, it will definitely attract a large number of politicians and officials.
The connections they bring will benefit Ron greatly, and the hotel's profits are secondary.
The Sunshine Hotel in Delhi can no longer adopt a religious style. It should be modern, urban and solemn.
Ron hired a foreign team to design it, and construction will begin in a few months if things go smoothly.
In addition to this five-star hotel, he also acquired a large plot of land of 350 acres in South Delhi.
This place is close to the city suburbs, so the land is relatively cheap, much lower than that of the Sunshine Hotel.
As the capital, New Delhi's urban circle will inevitably expand outward in the future, and Ron is making preparations in advance.
This piece of land is similar to that in Mumbai, and is planned as a large commercial district with shopping malls, apartments, office buildings, open-air plazas, entertainment venues, and international schools.
At the same time, Sur Properties’ headquarters will also be located here as one of New Delhi’s future landmark buildings.
The initial investment of $500 million is ambitious.
The plan attracted a lot of attention as soon as it was announced. The media reported extensively, and politicians also helped to tout it as Asia's largest business ecosystem.
If you want to make Sur Real Estate famous, there is nothing better than spending money.
The effect was very obvious. More and more parties and salons began to invite Ron, although he had not lacked such attention before.
Ron declined most of the requests for investment and sponsorship.
In India, don't invest in other people's projects easily, because the probability of losing money is very high.
The ethics of Indian businessmen are among the lowest in the world.
They will put the money in their own pockets first and only start thinking about business when the project date is approaching.
By then it was too late, either you had to make additional investments or admit defeat.
Even if some people are really working on this project, the progress will be interrupted by various abstract factors, which will eventually cause the project to be delayed again and again until it is abandoned.
There are countless examples like this, with Indian government projects being the first to bear the brunt.
The kowtow-making mothership has been around for decades, and the University of Tokyo has completed three or four five-year plans.
There is also the so-called space program, which was proposed very early, but there was no news until Ron landed on the Indian subcontinent.
Of course, the above are all normal business behaviors. The abnormal ones, like Arindam, are all scammers, and they are the mainstream among Indian businessmen.
There were praises for Ron's generosity, but there were also criticisms.
Editorialists, on the other hand, seem to be expressing their concerns. They say that if a country or a region receives a large amount of capital and quickly escapes poverty, it is very likely that it will not take into account those who are homeless and have no relatives or friends.
One newspaper even meticulously created a pyramid chart of India's wealth, where the height of the pyramid represents the amount and concentration of personal wealth.
Mumbai’s tower is the tallest, and you can imagine why.
Several large families settled there, including Ron.
New Delhi follows closely behind. It is the center of power, and most of the wealthy people in North India are concentrated in the core area.
The foreign magazine "The New Yorker" is also paying more and more attention to reporting on India's emerging wealth groups.
A few decades ago, the recognized richest man in India was the last Nizam of the Hyderabad dynasty, Osman Khan, the ruler of South India.
After India's independence, he was ousted from power and his wealth was forced to be handed over.
However, his deeds are still often mentioned. The article says that Osman had strange behavior, was thin, and had to use a tin plate to eat, and had to squat on a mat to eat.
His attitude towards wealth was quite aristocratic, and he was never keen on pursuing external splendor or extravagant consumption.
Only in today's India, the newly wealthy are the antithesis of Ottomanism: they move in a hurry, pursue a frenzied consumption style, and do everything they can to attract attention.
They pursue all things that are better, bigger, and more unique, and watch the public's admiration with cold eyes, while trying to create their own kingdom of wealth and their own pyramid, at the top of which float all kinds of desires that ordinary people cannot understand.
These emerging groups had their own club in Delhi, a former colonial institution next to the government office.
Ron had been invited to come over today, something he hadn't had the time for before. There were a few guests at the club he needed to meet.
They parked the car and walked through several empty rooms with high ceilings, down the long brown corridors of a colonial club, and into a crowded and noisy bar.
Looking from the doorway, Ron noticed that the locals from Delhi who came here were generally businessmen, civil servants and politicians, and their food and drink here were subsidized.
A bell would ring and the waiter would come to their piled-up table. It was Thursday, dance night at the bar.
In the evening, a large group of young urban men and women poured into the hall, making the middle-aged men restless, and they began to look for young dance partners in tight pants.
Ron was not going here, but upstairs, where the space was more private and more comfortably decorated.
Ron sat down on the sofa. The dance downstairs had just begun, and soon a man came up to them.
He had white highlights in his hair, a thick beard, and wore two gold chains under his green polo shirt.
The people at the club introduced the two parties to each other, but because the bar band was playing songs, Ron had difficulty hearing what he said.
“I work for the whole world,” he said.
"What kind of work do you do for the world?" Ron asked curiously.
“Ambassador,” he said, “I’m an ambassador to the world.”
He looked downstairs and then back at Ron, finding his joke quite amusing.
He handed over a business card that read: World Ambassador Ngapo Varma
"World" is a round-the-world yacht company registered in the Bahamas and headquartered in Miami.
Varma just wanted to give the impression that the yacht company was huge, and there was a hint of pride in his words.
If you want to buy a room on the yacht, it will cost at least $500,000. He emphasized the word "room" in the same way he emphasized the words "world" and "ambassador" before.
The price includes all onboard expenses, and the amount paid determines the number of votes the customer can hold, allowing them to decide the ship's itinerary through democratic elections.
This means you can buy a few more tickets to decide the next destination of the yacht.
US$500,000 per ticket, equivalent to 22.5 million rupees, is indeed not cheap.
After these people got ashore, they went their separate ways, and each of them had to pay for their own journey on land.
In comparison, life on board is more comfortable, and you can enjoy delicious food and art in peace.
Americans make up a large proportion of the people on the yacht, but there are also quite a few Indians.
Varma's job was to assign different cabins to guests from India.
To put it bluntly, the "world" is a yacht and the ambassadors on board are salespeople.
Valmar must guarantee the yacht's customers the security and ownership of the purchased part.
He wouldn't reveal the names of the customers, but would pick out a few company names from marketing records, such as American Express.
He said he had to consider that some people didn't really want to be on the boat and were just showing off how much money they made.
Ron understood why Varma was worried that people might talk about money on the boat, because money is almost always the topic in India.
To avoid this, Varma tries to get customers to choose short trips.
The cost of the World is $5,000 a day, "that's the starting price," he said. "When you're dining on a ship with these clients, you have to learn not to show off your wealth.
Everyone around me is so rich that talking about money is offensive. Either shut up or get off the boat at the next stop and never come back.
Ron listened with great interest. He was also very rich, but he seldom went out to spend money like this.
Listening to Varma talk about the performance of wealthy people around the world also satisfied his little curiosity.
Just as the two were chatting casually, several figures appeared on the stairs.
They are the guests Ron is waiting for today, Nilekani, one of the founders of Infosys, Premji, the CEO of Wipro, and Raju from Satyam Computers.
Varma was the middleman, and his yacht had hosted many wealthy people in India, especially emerging wealthy people in the computer field.
These people all knew Ron and were very happy because he was young enough to understand the changes that the computer information industry would bring to the world.
Unlike those old money in traditional industries, they subtly look down on the so-called software industry. They always think that this thing is invisible and intangible and very unreliable.
Sure enough, after just a few words, they were amazed at Ron's foresight in the computer field.
If they didn't know the famous Sur Electric, they would all think Ron was from Silicon Valley.
"Okay everyone, let's talk about today's business." Ron said with a smile.
He wasn't meeting with those people to chat about the future of computers; he was meeting to do business.
(End of this chapter)
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