15CPW Alert! Bullish Indian Billionaire Drops $4.6 M. (with $3.4 M. Mortgage!) on 16th-Floor Condo

Trophy real estate has become a de-facto rite of initiation into India's ever-growing billionaires club, so it’s only natural that a relatively new entrant, Saurabh Mittal, would buy a condo in one of New York's marquis buildings.

The founder of one of India's fastest-growing companies, Indiabulls Financial Services, has paid $4.6 million for a 16th-floor condo at 15 Central Park West through the Kalawati LLC, city records show.

After a brief stint as an investment analyst with Citigroup Asset Management in Manhattan, Mr. Mittal returned to India and started Indiabulls Financial Services in 2000 with two other engineering graduates from the Indian Institute of Technology, Dheli. Since then the company, whose principal shareholders include Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, and Morgan Stanley, has grown into a group valued at $10 billion, with assets that include the country's third-most valuable real estate company and more than 42 retail outlets.

Mr. Mittal bought a 5,500-square-foot apartment in the luxe Mumbai neighborhood of Cuffe Parade for about $9,366,943 at the current exchange rate in January 2007.

A year later, Indiabulls, announced plans to start an asset management arm and raise $1 billion in the overseas markets to meet the growing demand for consumer finance in India. Perhaps Mr. Mittal decided to come back to the city to buffer Indiabulls coffers.

It does seem a little odd that Mr. Mittal took out a $3.4 million mortgage on his new home considering his company's bullish performance.