On May 24, a strange ad appeared in the English daily Times Of India. The ad space was bought by a company named Landomus Group, and it was an attempt to communicate with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The ad itself raises a question mark as the group talks about investing USD 500 Billion in India but approached PM Modi via ad rather than using a proper channel.
Strange ad in the Times of India today. This company wants to invest $500 billion in India, slightly less than Indian total hard currency reserves and it is going the advertorial route with an appeal to the Indian PM? Wonder why. pic.twitter.com/s2Qdi5P8HD
— Smita Prakash (@smitaprakash) May 24, 2021
In the ad copy, the company claimed that it has a concrete plan to make India pandemic free. It reads, “Landomus Realty Ventures Inc., USA, would like to invest USD 500 Billion in Equity as the first phase of investment into the National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP) and Non-NIP projects listed by the Government of India under the India Investment Grid for “Invest India” initiative.“
Landomus Realty Ventures aims to make India a global destination by supporting the completion of NIP and Non-NIP projects along with investors and developers under the India Investment Grid in sectors such as Energy, Social Infrastructure, Manufacturing, Transport, Food Processing & Agriculture, Water & Sanitation etc.
Landomus Group aims to assist the Government in its endeavour to rebuild India and achieve the USD 5 Trillion GDP target. Landomus Group requests you to provide us with an opportunity to contribute to your vision of a New India.”
The ad raises several red flags
Signed by Pradeep Kumar S, this “open letter” sort of advertisement has a lot of red flags attached to it. Let’s examine the problems one by one. First of all, as this is going to be a Foreign Direct Investment, the company has to submit a proposal using Foreign Investment Facilitation Portal (FIFP). The application will be directed to the appropriate authority to examine the proposal and allow investment only if it is in compliance with the guidelines and laws.
Even if some company wants to approach PM Modi to talk about the investment, the correct way would be through Prime Minister’s Office and not via an advertisement in the newspaper. At first glance, it looks like a PR stunt on the similar lines of CM Kejriwal, who runs such ads periodically in print and electronic media.
NIP and non-NIP projects
In December 2019, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the NIP under which the central government projected total infrastructure investment worth Rs 111 lakh crore during FY20-25. During the 2021 Union Budget, the projects in NIP were expanded from 6,835 projects to 7,400 projects.
Possibly dubious website
OpIndia examined the website of the company. The one-page website landomus[dot]com has a similar announcement. It reads, “Landomus Realty Ventures Inc., USA, would like to invest USD 500 Billion in Equity as the First Phase of the USD 2 Trillion investment under Build India into the National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP) and Non-NIP projects listed by the Government of India under the India Investment Grid for “Invest India” initiative.”
When we tried to check the Whois record of the website, we found that it was registered in 2015, and the Whois information was modified on May 24 and made private, few hours before this report was published. According to MoneyControl, it was revealed that the domain was registered by United Land Bank, which is located in Sivan Chetty Gardens in Karnataka, India.
The website does not share much information about the owner and partners in the company. It names five people in the team. Pradeep Kumar Satyaprakash, who is the Chairman & CEO and four directors named Mamatha H N, Yashas Pradeep Kumar, Rakshith Gangadhar and Gunashree Pradeep Kumar. There are five advisors named Pamela Keough, Praveen Oscar Shiri, Praveen Muralidhar, AVV Bhaskar and Naveen Sajjan.
The US address of the company, according to the website, is 6453 Riverside Station Boulevard, Secaucus, NJ 07094, USA. When we checked the address on Google Maps, it showed a residential area and not any commercial offices.
Company details of Landomus
Opindia investigated the existence of the company in India and in the US. According to information available on Zuabacorp.com, there is one Landomus Realty Ventures Private Limited in India. The registered address of the company is S-415, 4th Floor, Manipal Center, # 47, Dickenson Road (Off M.G.Road) Bangalore. The company was registered in July 2015. It has an authorized capital of Rs.10 lakh and a paid-up capital of Rs.1,00,000.
There are three directors in the company, Yashas Pradeep Kumar, Sathyaprakash Pradeep Kumar and Rakshith Gangadhar. the three names also appeared in the list of team members on the website, which confirms that the us company that published the ad and the company registered in india are linked to the same group of people.
According to the information on zoominfo, the us company Landomus Realty Ventures Inc. Has a revenue of $5 million. It has 19 employees.
Pradeep Sathyaprakash is the chairman and CEO, Naveen Sajjan and Praveen Muralidhar are the directors. Notably, Sajaan and Muralidhar are named advisors on the website and not directors.
In fact, the company is so obscure, that it has zero internet footprints. The only news about this company are about the bizarre ad it put up in today’s leading daily.
