India's Unitech realty fund raises $300 mln

NEW DELHI, July 17 (Reuters) - A realty fund launched by India's No. 2 listed developer, Unitech Ltd (UNTE.BO: Quote, Profile, Research), has raised $300 million from international investors for the firm's projects, a company spokesman said on Thursday.

"This is the first tranche. Another $300 million will be raised by September," the spokesman said. He declined to name the investors.

The Economic Times newspaper, citing an identified senior Unitech executive, said a Japanese bank and some Europe-based wealthy individuals were the investors in the Unitech International Real Estate Fund.

Property firms have been chasing private equity investors to tide over a cash crunch caused by rising lending rates, high inflation and falling stock markets.

Unitech Ltd last month sold half its stake in the first phase of a commercial real estate project in Mumbai to Lehman Brothers Real Estate Partners for $175 million rupees and said it was looking for private equity investments of about $1 billion for its hotel and other projects. (Reporting by Devidutta Tripathy and Narayanan Somasundaram; Editing by Ranjit Gangadharan)