Sam Industries is a family-run real estate developer that has quietly transformed itself from a maker of welding electrodes into a builder of warehouses for India’s e-commerce boom. Incorporated in 1994 and led by a husband-and-wife team in Indore, the company wound down its legacy manufacturing business and redirected its capital into buying land and constructing buildings that it then leases to logistics and retail tenants. The recurring pattern is simple: use the cash from one asset to build the next, keeping the company small, debt-free, and tightly held by its promoters.
Business segments
Two engines, one cycle - a real estate business that buys land, builds warehouses and shops, and locks in long-term tenants, and an investment portfolio that holds the proceeds in public stocks until the next project is ready.
1. Real Estate: a landlord to India’s logistics networks
The company buys land in the Indore-Dewas corridor, builds warehouses and commercial buildings on it, and then signs multi-year leases with national logistics and retail chains - it is a property owner, not a trader.
- Built for tenants with national scale - the division has signed lease agreements with Instakart Services and Delhivery, two of India’s largest logistics companies, for warehouses on A.B. Road in Indore.
- A second project feeds the same demand - a separate commercial building called ‘Shivaay One’ on Yeshwant Niwas Road has been leased to two fashion retailers, N. M. Fashion Designs and Gabbana Fashions, again on nine-year terms with three-year lock-ins, showing the model is repeatable across tenant types.
- More space is already under construction - Delhivery has signed a letter of intent for a further 60,000-square-foot warehouse at a new site called Shivaay LogiSpace, which Sam Industries Limited will build and then lease to Delhivery for nine years, extending the relationship before the first lease even expires.
- The land bank is the foundation - the company holds inventory of land valued at cost and has three projects in progress as capital work-in-progress: two at its original Dakachya village site and one at the Yeshwant Niwas Road address in Indore city.
- Legacy assets still pay rent - the division also earns lease rent from D&H Secheron Electrodes, a related party that once housed the company’s old welding business, so even the retired manufacturing operation contributes cash to the real estate engine.
2. Investments: a patient pool of capital parked in public markets
The company holds a diversified portfolio of quoted Indian equities and mutual funds, earning dividends and interest while it waits to deploy cash into its next real estate project.
- A portfolio of household names - the non-current investment book includes shares in Cochin Shipyard, BSE Limited, Central Depository Services, ITC, and HDFC Bank, among others, giving it exposure to power, auto, pharma, and retail sectors.
- Marked to market every year - all quoted shares are valued at the closing market price on the balance-sheet date, so the portfolio’s value rises and falls with the stock market, and the company has made an irrevocable election to present subsequent changes in fair value of equity instruments in profit or loss.
- Income arrives as dividends and interest - the division recognises dividend income when the right to receive it is established, and interest on a time-proportionate basis, providing a steady trickle of cash that supplements the rental income from the real estate side.
Group structure and partners
The company is a standalone entity with no subsidiaries or joint ventures, tightly controlled by its promoter family and a network of related private companies that supply it with land.
- Promoters own nearly three-quarters - as of the latest disclosed shareholding, the promoter group held 74.83% of the equity, with the single largest shareholder being Sam Exim Limited at 48%.
- Land comes from related parties - the company purchased the Yeshwant Niwas Road plot for its ‘Shivaay One’ project from four related private companies - Celestial Commercial, Sam Hoteliers & Resorts, Sam Project Developers, and Sam Spintex - for a total consideration of Rs. 8.51 crore.
- A family affair at the top - the Chairman, Mr. Ashutosh Maheshwari, and the Whole-time Director, Mrs. Gitanjali Maheshwari, are spouses, and together they run a company with only nine permanent employees including themselves.
- Social spending runs through a foundation - the company’s corporate social responsibility activities, focused on promoting education in Indore, are channelled through Sam Foundation, a separate entity with its own CSR registration.