Siddharth Yog
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| Siddharth Yog | |
|---|---|
| Born | |
| 🎓 Alma mater | Harvard Business School (M.B.A) Shri Ram College of Commerce (B.Com (Hons.)) |
| 💼 Occupation | Founding Partner, The Xander Group Inc. Founder and Chairman, Virtuous Retail Founder, Yuj Kutumb |
Sid Yog is a global investor, serial entrepreneur and Indian philanthropist. He founded emerging markets investment firm, The Xander Group Inc. in March 2005[1]. The investment company is headquartered in Singapore, and currently has US$ 3 billion[2] of Assets Under Management.
Yog also founded Virtuous Retail in 2007[1] as a community focussed, retail real estate development and operating platform. Virtuous Retail initially partnered with Tata owned Trent Ltd. to enter the Indian market with a joint venture company called TreXa, but mutually agreed to unwind the joint venture a few years later, with the latter buying out the former’s share. Yog personally still remains one of Trent’s largest shareholders after the Tata promoter group with close to 4.6% of the listed company’s equity, valued close to Indian Rupees 1,000 crores.In 2016, in the then largest single deal in the Indian retail real estate sector, Dutch pension fund asset manager APG Asset Management and Virtuous Retail partnered to form a US$500mm equity joint venture, creating a new Singapore-headquartered company – Virtuous Retail South Asia. Headquartered in Singapore, with a strong operational team in India, this new entity enabled Yog to continue to make smart bets in India’s commercial real estate space, especially in urban city centers, and grow the Virtuous Retail. He continues to chair the Virtuous Retail South Asia Board.
Business Career[edit]
His Path to The Xander Group[edit]
With an honour’s degree in Economics from Shri Ram College in Delhi, Siddharth (also known as Sid) helped CBRE, one of the world’s largest commercial estate services company, establish its presence in India. From 1995 to 1999, Yog served as a founding member of CBRE[3] in the country. Going on to conceive, launch and manage the Asia Pacific Strategic Consulting group for the company out of , Singapore and Hong Kong until 2002.
A sabbatical from work led him to the Harvard Business School where he was elected a George F. Baker scholar[4]. He was also elected Class president by his peers, becoming the first Indian to achieve this distinction.
Given his depth of experience in real estate across Asia Pacific and in India, he was backed by the Getty Family and Lord Rothschild and RIT Cap, and a clutch of other investors when he started The Xander Group in 2005[1]. He raised US$ 120 million[1] for a real estate fund, barely six months after leaving HBS when the Indian government opened up the real estate sector for foreign investment. While more than a hundred real estate funds set up shop in India in the next few years, few entrepreneurs could navigate India’s booming ecosystem like Sid Yog. Between 2005 and 2015, The Xander Funds raised over US $ 2 Billion in equity under Yog’s stewardship. Yog stepped down from chairing the investment committee of the Xander Funds in 2015. In 2007 Private Equity Real Estate magazine voted him one of twenty global rising stars of the future in the private equity real estate industry[5].
The Indian commercial retail space can be challenging for those who do not possess the requisite skills to navigate its complex environment. Sid Yog saw the opportunity in these challenges, understanding that if retail was to grow in India in the next decade, it would require quality retail spaces[6]. That is what led him to launch Virtuous Retail, which some consider his boldest bet. The company's vision for India was to create new social hubs for the urban consumer by ‘Connecting Communities’.
VR is helmed by a leader whose patience and the ability to judge risk and invest[7][8] is par none. Siddharth Yog also invests his own money in various projects with the belief that it is the best way to show confidence in his work.
VR has redefined the concept of retail for its consumers in India by delivering innovative community centres that seamlessly integrate shopping, hospitality, food, leisure, flexible working and living, events, and entertainment at one destination. Personally deeply involved and instrumental in the design direction and conceptualisation of each of the VR centres, Yog believes in providing urban consumers a holistic experience that could bring them closer to art, culture, and heritage[9].
In 2010 Yog, along with his Partners at Xander, also launched Xander Finance, which is licensed by the Reserve Bank of India as a systemically important NBFC[1]. Yog served as Chairman of the Board and the Credit committee between 2010 and 2015, stepping down from both positions to spend the next few years teaching at Harvard.
About a decade after leaving business school, in August 2014, in recognition of his achievements and success as an investor in the real estate sector and in emerging markets, Sid Yog was invited to join his alma mater as a member of the faculty. Professor Yog started by teaching, the school's flagship real estate elective course ‘Real Property Asset Management’ for one year and then designing and teaching a popular second-year elective course ‘Investing in Emerging Markets’. During his six years of teaching at HBS he researched and wrote many popular HBS cases, including on companies like Emaar in Dubai, The Link REIT in Hong Kong, and HCC and Prop Tiger in India. He gave up his appointment at HBS in 2019 to focus full time again on his business and philanthropic interests.
Philanthropy[edit]
Sid Yog is the Chairman of Yuj Kutumb [10]– The Yog Foundation through which he invests in and supports numerous causes related to education[11], preservation of heritage and architecture, and the arts[12][13]. In 2011 he gave a gift of USD 11 Million[14], the single largest personal gift ever given by an Indian to Harvard university[15] to endow professorships, fellowships for need based students and to fund intellectual entrepreneurship. He added 1 $ for good luck in an ode to an old Indian tradition. Doug Melton, one of the worlds leading authorities on stem cell research currently holds the Xander University Professorship at Harvard University that Yog endowed, and the Dean of the Harvard Ed School, Bridget T Long currently occupies the chair endowed by Yog at that Harvard school.
In the same year he became one of the five original founders[16] of a new research based university in India by contributing an undisclosed amount to set up the liberal arts focussed Ashoka University[16]. He has served on the Governing Body of the university since its founding.
Sid Yog is a member of the President's Global Advisory Council and the Committee on University Resources at Harvard University. An avid supporter of the Arts, he is a Trustee of The American Repertory Theatre[17] in Cambridge, Massachusetts since 2015, and a Member of the Global Advisory Council at Lincoln Center[18] in New York since 2017.
References[edit]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 "Xander's Masterstrokes In A Slumping Market". Forbes India. Retrieved 2020-08-19.
- ↑ Kamath, Raghavendra (2019-04-24). "We don't change standards depending on market cycles, says Xander's founder". Business Standard India. Retrieved 2020-08-19.
- ↑ "CBRE India posted on LinkedIn". www.linkedin.com. Retrieved 2020-08-19.
- ↑ "Panelists". Harvard Re_construct. Retrieved 2020-08-19.
- ↑ "The Next Generation" (PDF). PERE - Private Equity Real Estate. 3: 36, 43. July 2007.
|Authors list=missing|1=(help) - ↑ "Weekender With Siddharth Yog-Ep12-Pt1 - YouTube". www.youtube.com. Retrieved 2020-08-19.
- ↑ "Virtuous Retail buys land worth Rs 700 crore from Raymond; to invest Rs 1,700 crore more on project". The Financial Express. 2019-10-09. Retrieved 2020-08-19.
- ↑ Sapam, Bidya (2019-09-24). "Virtuous Retail acquires three malls for $500 mn". Livemint. Retrieved 2020-08-19.
- ↑ Babar, Kailash. "Xander's retail arm looks to expand portfolio". The Economic Times. Retrieved 2020-08-19.
- ↑ "Yuj Kutumb". VCCircle. Retrieved 2020-08-19.
- ↑ "The Ken raises $1.5M to grow its subscription journalism business in India". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2020-08-19.
- ↑ "Fifth Annual Whitefield Art Collective Inaugurated". https://www.outlookindia.com/. Retrieved 2020-08-19. External link in
|website=(help) - ↑ "Fifth annual Whitefield Art Collective Inaugurated". ANI News. Retrieved 2020-08-19.
- ↑ Bhattacharya, Saumya. "Xander Group founder Siddharth Yog gifts $11 million to Harvard Business School". The Economic Times. Retrieved 2020-08-19.
- ↑ "A gift that spans Schools". Harvard Gazette. 2011-11-10. Retrieved 2020-08-19.
- ↑ 16.0 16.1 "Young India Fellowship | Postgraduate Diploma Programme in Liberal Studies". www.yifp.in. Retrieved 2020-08-19.
- ↑ "Who’s Who at the A.R.T." americanrepertorytheater.org. Retrieved 2020-08-19.
- ↑ "Business Advisory Council | Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts". www.aboutlincolncenter.org. Retrieved 2020-08-19.
External links[edit]
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