Hemisphere Properties: The talk of the town

But first, a little history The company was conceptualised during the disinvestment exercise of VSNL (later known as Tata Communications) back in 2002 by the government. Naturally, the terms of the disinvestment required a separate value to be ascribed to lands which were going to be retained with VSNL and subsequently demerged into a separate entity. Panatone, a Tata group company, won the disinvestment bid. However, the fate of Hemisphere Properties was left in doldrums for a long time after that. This was primarily due to the burden of a capital gains tax on the shoulders of the Tata Group that they were to pay upon transferring the surplus land to Hemisphere Properties. Back in the day, the benefit of tax neutrality was not applicable to the companies which ceased to belong to the public sector as a result of divestment. Finally, in 2016-17, the tax laws changed, the scheme of demerger got approved, and in October 2020, the company got listed. The e