Brian Chinappi coverage in Institutional Real Estate Inc.: India Experts: A roundtable discussion on what awaits investors in the nation
In Institutional Real Estate Inc, Brian Chinappi, Global Head of Real Estate and Data Centers at Actis, joined fellow industry experts to discuss why we believe India is emerging as one of the most compelling destinations for institutional capital.
Brian highlights how strong economic and demographic growth, rapid urbanisation, growing consumption and digital transformation are driving durable demand for infrastructure and new-economy real estate in this vast market – from data centers to logistics hubs. The roundtable article also underscores how regulatory reforms over the past decade have significantly improved and enhanced institutional readiness for long-term capital – a view shared by the experts featured in the piece. Click here to read the full article or read on below for just some of Brian’s commentary.
Brian Chinappi, Global Head of Real Estate and Data Centers at Actis, commented:
“We believe India’s economy represents a terrific proposition for infrastructure and real estate investors, underpinned by sustained and strong economic growth. This long-term growth trend is continuing, with a real GDP growth forecast of 6.4 percent for 2026, according to the IMF [International Monetary Fund], which would take it past Japan to cement its position as the world’s fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP. India’s share of worldwide economic growth is set to reach 17 percent this year, which evidences how important this market has become at the international level.
“In our view, this robust economy — now the world’s third-largest infrastructure market — is sustained by disciplined macroeconomic management and a long-term policy focus on infrastructure and urbanisation. Importantly for institutional capital, growth today is not being driven by leverage or speculative excess, but by consumption, digitalisation, manufacturing, logistics and services expansion.
“Given the strength and stability of the regulatory regime that has been created, we hold the view that India ought to be considered a fast-maturing and highly investable market that can provide depth, liquidity and exit options for investors, notably in new-economy real estate assets like industrial and logistics hubs, life sciences facilities, and data centres.
“India’s real estate fundamentals today are notably differentiated from many Western markets. Traditional sectors such as office and residential are stabilising, but we think the real institutional opportunity lies in new-economy real estate. India’s data centre sector presents a great opportunity, with surging digital demand, mobile data consumption and cloud adoption, as well as supportive policies on data localisation and a more than two-decades-long tax holiday for global cloud service providers operating through Indian data centres. Industrial and logistics real estate is benefitting from supply-chain diversification at the global level — including China Plus One policies — ecommerce growth within India and manufacturing incentives, with strong absorption, tightening vacancies and emerging rental growth. India is also considered a life sciences powerhouse, with half of the world’s vaccines produced and about 20 percent of exported generic drugs originating in the market, for example. The sector is continuing to rise but needs to be met with a corresponding increase in specialised and high-quality life sciences real estate solutions. Importantly, these assets are not overbuilt and are typically underpinned by long-term tenants with high switching costs. From a capital structure perspective, returns are less dependent on leverage and more on development execution and operational expertise. For long-term investors, this translates into assets with defensive cashflows, inflation linkage and clear exit demand from both global and domestic capital pools seeking stable, income-generating exposure to India’s growth.”
Disclaimer
The statements made by Brian Chinappi herein regarding India as an investment destination are as of 13 March 2026 and represent the views of Actis or the source cited, which is not research and should not be treated as research. Historic market trends are not reliable indicators of actual future market behaviour or future performance of any particular investment which may differ materially and should not be relied upon as such. Moreover, there is no assurance historical trends will continue.