Arun Bhatia Family

If you have been following the Air Asia JV in India,you are bound to have come across the company Telestra Tradeplace. If you are curious to read more about the people behind this obscure company,continue reading this post.You will definitely get to know more about how business is actually done.

According to filings with the Registrar of Companies,Telestra Tradeplace was registered in August 2001.It has a paid up capital of Rs 1 lakh and  made a profit of Rs 31.09 lakh in the year ended March 2012 as against Rs 52.9 lakh a year ago. The company has invested around Rs 1.5 crore in Cavim Realty, indicating an interest in the real estate business.As of September 2012, the Bhatia family owns the entire shareholding of the firm.

So who are the Bhatias?

The Bhatias are believed to be an old family from Delhi, wealthy but very low profile. The senior Bhatias are known as “old hands in the real estate business”.Their wealth comes from land and real estate through their construction and development business.The family has been in the real estate business for many years, investing in land and buildings. As prices all over Delhi jumped after the boom, the valuation of their land bank soared. The value of their land bank in Delhi is estimated to be over Rs 1,000 crore.They deal in land and bungalows in and around Lutyens Delhi and develop and sell expansive farmhouses in upmarket areas on the greener fringes of the city like West End Greens and Pushpanjali Farms, where land values today are upwards of Rs 25 crore an acre.

Telestra Tradeplace is also into commodities trading.

The Bhatia’s have 2 sons Aneesh and Amit. The former is in the business of making precision parts for the aircraft industry. The latter, a Cornell business management graduate ,was in the news in 2004 he got engaged to Vanisha Mittal,daughter of Arcelor-Mittal chairman LN Mittal, at the Palace of Versailles,and later married her in an eye-popping wedding extravaganza at the Chateau Vaux le Vicomte. Amit Bhatia, then went on to set up Swordfish Investments, a private equity, capital markets and real estate investment firm.Known for his love for sports, Amit also manages the Mittal Champions Trust that is nurturing Indian sports persons for Olympic medals. Amit Bhatia also co-owns the English Premier League football club Queens Park Rangers with Tony Fernandes and the partnership for the airline took off from there.The on-dit on the street is that the Bhatias are a front for Tony,who cannot invest more in the Air Asia JV because of foreign investment caps in Aviation.