The IPO of Horizon Industrial Parks (HIPL), the owner and operator of industrial and logistics infrastructure, opens for subscription on Monday. The Blackstone-backed company aims to raise ₹2,600 crore through a fresh issue of shares, primarily to pay down ₹2,250 crore of borrowings. There is no offer for sale component. Blackstone’s (through its affiliate entities) pre-IPO stake of 88.7 per cent stands diluted to 75.4 per cent post the issue.
As an owner and operator of Grade-A warehouses and manufacturing facilities that generate lease income, HIPL gives investors exposure to India’s broader manufacturing and consumption-led GVA (gross value added) growth. However, considering the risk factors laid out here, the asking price at 31.3x post-issue enterprise value (EV) to EBITDA (FY26) appears expensive. Investors may therefore give the IPO a pass for now and look for more attractive entry points in the future.
What it does
HIPL owns and operates three kinds of Grade-A logistics and industrial assets — fulfilment centres, industrial facilities and in-city centres.
Fulfilment centres are basically large warehouses ranging from 50,000 sq ft to 0.5 million sq ft, let out to customers belonging to e-commerce, third-party logistics, FMCG and retail sectors. At 16.3 million sq ft, fulfilment centres account for 57 per cent of HIPL’s operational assets by area.
Industrial facilities are similar large sites ranging from 50,000 sq ft to 0.8 million sq ft designed to support assembly lines, light engineering, manufacturing activities and let out to companies belonging to sectors such as automotive, renewable energy, electronics, aerospace and telecom. These facilities span 11.4 million sq ft and account for 40 per cent of operational assets by area. HIPL also executes turnkey fit-outs (like structures, storage racks) on the lessee’s request and thus, industrial facilities typically have slightly higher rental yield relative to fulfilment centres.
As the name suggests, in-city centres are facilities located within the city, designed for purposes such as quick-commerce dark stores, online pharma, D2C businesses, large-format retail and cloud kitchens. Unlike the fulfilment centres and industrial facilities, which are located at about one-two hours from city centres, in-city centres are located around urban residential areas, at 10-30 minutes from the end-consumer. At 0.8 million sq ft, these account for the rest of HIPL’s operational portfolio. In-city assets command premium rental prices, equivalent to sub-urban commercial real estate and earn substantially higher than fulfilment and industrial assets.
What works
HIPL has strong promoter backing in Blackstone, the American alternative asset management firm. Globally, Blackstone manages assets worth over $1.3 trillion and about 1,200 million sq ft of logistics assets.
Horizon stands to directly benefit from three key tailwinds in India — the push towards manufacturing, growing penetration of e-commerce and the faster-growing quick commerce market. Compared with developed economies, India’s per capita warehousing stock is highly underpenetrated at 0.5 sq ft as of 2025. The same for the US and Japan are at 47.1 sq ft and 7.2 sq ft respectively. That of China is slightly higher than India’s at 0.8 sq ft. As highlighted by the RHP, India’s Grade-A warehousing stock is projected to grow to about 950 million sq ft by 2030 from about 300 million sq ft as of 2025, at a CAGR of 25 per cent.
HIPL has a land-bank of about 2,200 acres — 77 per cent of which is on freehold basis with the rest on long-term leasehold basis (typically for over 90 years). Typically spanning 50-100 acres, these land parcels are located in India’s top 10 industrial and consumption hubs which include metros and tier-1 cities such as Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Pune. This land-bank houses the current operational portfolio of 28.6 million sq ft and has scope for further development of assets measuring 32.6 million sq ft. Within this, projects are either in pre-construction approval stage or in very early phases of development. This 32.6 million sq ft also includes 6.1 million sq ft of in-city centres. HIPL’s business is projected to grow as it develops the said 32.6 million sq ft. For perspective, in FY26, the company operationalised about 5.2 million sq ft of assets.
Here are a few other useful facts to note. As of May 31, 2026, overall occupancy is at 93.6 per cent, and the leases are negotiated for typical terms of 5-10 years. The agreements also carry a rent escalation clause of 4.5-5 per cent per annum. Besides leasing, HIPL also offers ancillary services such as turnkey solutions (as said above), rooftop solar, cold storage and on-site staff accommodation. Overall, rent charged per sq ft per month has grown at a CAGR of 7.7 per cent between FY23 and May 31, 2026 (3.2 years).
What does not
HIPL is still in its infancy. It became operational only in May 2021 when Blackstone acquired the business from the Embassy group and Jazz Leaf Investment. While it has commissioned 28.6 million sq ft of assets quickly in over five years, it has left the company deeply in debt. As of FY26, gross debt stands at about ₹6,900 crore or 11.4x FY26 EBITDA. Readers can refer to the table to infer how despite robust EBITDA margins, the company still ends up in losses due to interest cost. Depreciation is largely non-cash in HIPL’s line of business as the assets do not cost a lot to upkeep.
The fresh issue proceeds do bring debt down. Post-issue, net-debt to EBITDA improves to 2.75x. However, the asking multiple of 31.3x EV/EBITDA (post-IPO) is still expensive due to the following reasons.
As said above, assets are almost fully occupied. Hence, growth must come from operationalising and leasing out incremental assets. Per the RHP, HIPL expects to develop the said 32.6 million sq ft in four-five years and it would need a ballpark ₹8,000 crore to build (per inputs from the management). Currently, the company’s internally-accrued cash flows do not have the bandwidth to support such capex. After repaying ₹2,250 crore of debt, the company would be left with roughly ₹2,000 crore in cash for development, implying that the remaining ₹6,000 crore of capex would need to be funded through fresh debt, to the extent of the shortfall that internal cash flows cannot bridge. For perspective, in FY26, HIPL generated ₹481 crore of pre-tax operating cash flows.
Per our model (which itself is based on optimistic assumptions including ignoring the time gap between commissioning and letting out), by FY28, we estimate HIPL to have cumulatively operationalised about 40 million sq ft and generating EBITDA such that the EV/EBITDA multiple works out to 17x. Considering the execution risks around this business, even that valuation leaves little room for slippages and still appears expensive. This especially holds for risk-averse investors who can look at REITs as alternatives which already generate good dividend yield and have a portfolio of mature assets.
Published on August 15, 2026
