HERALD: What are the takeaways for you from Vibrant Goa?
VIJAY THOMAS: I think the big take away is that there is a lot of interest, a lot of enthusiasm in the Goan business community. There is a lot of positivity, energy, that yes we can see that things can get done and this is fantastic and contagious as more people begin to believe that there can be big companies that come out of Goa. I always give the example of Italy, in the Maranello region of Italy, Ferrari, Lamborghini, some of the major car companies are in a 40-50 sqkm radius. I think in Goa we have that same ambition and the push to do it. I think there could be a day when Goa could be a hotbed for technology companies, companies that start out of here, so I think it is fantastic.
HERALD: How would you rate Goa as far as its ecosystem is concerned? Any changes required?
VT: I think IT is one of those businesses which are fairly simple. What IT needs in most cases is unlimited power supply, uninterrupted high speed Internet and an educated pool of people to hire from. Goa does have an educated pool but there are things we can correct. Internet is spotty, we need a slightly better Internet. Power supply has been quite good except for the last couple of days. Things like IT power could help, there are incentives. I was recently visited Trivandrum in Kerala and I was blown away. I think if Goa could do something like that and get companies to invest I think it would be good for Goan businesses
HERALD: How is your unit doing in Goa? Are you planning to spread out?
VT: Tangentia in Goa is doing well and we have the global business as well as customers in India including Reliance, ITC etc.
We have a venture capital division where we invest in start-ups. Fractional ownership, an investment strategy, which first came into vogue when top businessmen around the globe collectively pitched in to co-own business jets, is now a cutting-edge investment strategy when it comes to real estate too. The Fractional Ownership model designed by FOHO houses enables a person to own a fraction of a house or a property with 12 other individuals, who have similarly opted to. This collective of individuals not only end up physically owning a share of the freehold of the property as an asset – the bricks and mortar, but when one or all of them are ready to sell it at any point in time, there can with a realistic shot at making a profit. We did the global launch at Vibrant Goa.
HERALD: How will this concept work?
VT: FOHO was an idea we started off internally in our venture capital division. We started off last year, it took us some time to finalise the product. Today second home ownership is very aspirational. People want to have a second home but not many people can own a second home as it is expensive. We found out statistically that second home users use the second home only for 3-4 weeks in a year so why pay for the whole year when you are only using it for 3-4 weeks? So now what we have come up with is that you only pay for four weeks in a year and you are a fractional owner. So let us say a house costs about Rs 2 crore, people go ahead and buy that and maybe each of them, their share is less than Rs 20 lakh. Hence in less than 20 lakh you own the house and anyway use it for only 4 weeks, you get your four weeks anyway and you are now part of a group, so what we are going with is that we build the whole system and bring these co-owners on board so this is like a timeshare but with the ownership of the underlying property. So that is the idea and we have curated some fantastic properties in Goa. We have properties close to Aldeia de Goa which is very close to the beach in Bambolim and we are very excited on this.
HERALD: Property ownership is always controversial and there are family feuds over property. What is the response you are getting?
VT: I think here we have a more robust system it is going to be a private limited company. It is going to be controlled under the Registrar of Companies. There will be audits every year so we have built a system that it is on the right side of the law. In fact we have made sure that it is more complaint than required for example Bharat Standard 3 we are saying that we are already BS 6 and make sure compliances even higher level. If anybody wants to exit, we are guaranteeing a buyback for whatever reason.
As far as response is concerned, we actually had to stop our facebook campaign. We had around 500 people interested in a minor campaign that we ran on facebook and we had to actually take it down since we could not even respond to all these people. It has been tremendous. We have got responses from people all over the country in India and Goa is definitely a hotbed for this.
HERALD: How are you going to connect Canada, Goa and US?
VT: For our business, I do travel almost every two months. I am a part of the Indo-Canadian Chamber of Commerce and we are a part of the Goa Technology Association (GTA). Also, I have been involved in some of these business organisations on both sides of the border. I see myself as having homes in both places and I think slowly people are becoming global citizens and that is what I see the world coming together.
