Anant Raj Ltd’s board voted Tuesday to break its data centre business away from its real estate operations, creating a new listed company called Ashok Cloud Private Limited and handing existing shareholders one new share for every share they already hold. Shares of the Delhi-based real estate and data centre developer closed at Rs 609.60 on the BSE, up from a previous close of Rs 600.60, with the stock set to stay in focus into Wednesday’s session.
That is not the interesting part. Anant Raj tried this identical maneuver once before, folding a subsidiary into itself and then demerging a division into a freshly listed company at the same 1:1 ratio. That earlier split, announced in 2018, took roughly two years to clear the National Company Law Tribunal and four years from first proposal to the day shareholders actually got their new shares.
The Scheme Turns One Listed Company Into Two
The restructuring runs in two linked steps inside a single court supervised scheme. First, Anant Raj Cloud Private Limited (ARCPL, the wholly owned subsidiary already running part of the data centre business) gets amalgamated into its parent, Anant Raj Ltd. Then Anant Raj demerges the entire, now consolidated data centre and cloud services undertaking into Ashok Cloud Private Limited, a separate entity.
Shareholders come out the other side holding stock in both companies. Eligible Anant Raj shareholders will receive one fully paid up equity share of face value Rs 2 in Ashok Cloud for every similar share they hold in Anant Raj Ltd, according to the company’s own scheme announcement. Anant Raj framed the split as a way to let two very different businesses chart their own course.
By bringing together the data centre and cloud services operations currently housed across Anant Raj Ltd and Anant Raj Cloud Pvt Ltd under one roof, we are creating a more focused and scalable platform that will be well positioned to attract investments, pursue strategic partnerships, and capitalize on emerging opportunities in the digital infrastructure sector.
Anant Raj said in the statement announcing the scheme. The company added that segregating the two businesses would help each attract dedicated investors suited to its own growth profile, rather than being valued as one blended entity.
A Sliver of Revenue Carries the Growth Story
Here is what makes the split notable. The data centre undertaking being carved out reported turnover of Rs 145.90 crore for the year ended March 31, 2026, which works out to just 8.96 per cent of Anant Raj Ltd’s total turnover of Rs 1,627.72 crore, based on figures disclosed as part of the scheme.
Zoom out to the whole company and the picture looks stronger. Anant Raj’s overall profit climbed to Rs 557.02 crore in 2025-26 from Rs 425.82 crore a year earlier, a jump of nearly 31 per cent, while total income rose to Rs 2,579.08 crore from Rs 2,100.28 crore. Real estate still does the heavy lifting on the income statement. Data centres are getting nearly all of the capital commitments.
- 28 MW of IT load currently running across the Manesar and Panchkula campuses, as of the company’s most recent public disclosures
- 307 MW targeted by fiscal 2032 across Manesar, Panchkula and a new Rai facility, backed by roughly $2.1 billion (about Rs 18,000 crore) of planned capex
- Rs 4,500 crore committed to Andhra Pradesh under a November 2025 memorandum, expected to support around 8,500 direct and 7,500 indirect jobs
- Rs 20,000 crore pledged to Haryana in a separate June 2026 memorandum, layered on top of the existing buildout
A business generating under a tenth of group turnover is drawing tens of thousands of crores in state level investment pledges. That gap between today’s books and tomorrow’s spending is exactly why Anant Raj wants the market pricing it on its own terms.
States Are Already Writing the Checks
Anant Raj is riding a much bigger wave. India’s data centre market was valued at $9.79 billion in 2025 and is projected to reach $21.03 billion by 2031, growing at better than 13 per cent a year, according to a market research release covering 132 existing facilities and 81 more in the pipeline. JLL has separately estimated the country’s installed capacity will surge 66 per cent by 2026, adding 604 MW and requiring $3.8 billion of fresh investment, growth it attributes largely to artificial intelligence workloads and the nationwide 5G rollout.
State governments are chasing that money directly. Haryana signed its Rs 20,000 crore memorandum with Anant Raj at the launch of its Make in Haryana policy, an event chaired by Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini. Andhra Pradesh moved first, inking its Rs 4,500 crore memorandum through ARCPL in November 2025 with the state’s Economic Development Board. States beyond these two are chasing the same prize in their own way; Kerala, for instance, has launched an AI and chip mission of its own after rebranding its IT department this year.
Anant Raj Ran This Exact Playbook in 2018
This is the part most coverage of Tuesday’s announcement is skipping. Anant Raj first proposed spinning off its project and real estate development division back in July 2016, into a company that would become Anant Raj Global Limited (ARGL). The board revised and re-approved a fuller composite scheme in August 2018, this time also folding in a promoter holding company to simplify the group’s structure.
The Bombay Stock Exchange and National Stock Exchange did not clear that scheme until March 2019. The National Company Law Tribunal’s Chandigarh bench did not approve it until August 2020. Shareholders finally received their ARGL shares on a record date of October 7, 2020, more than four years after the idea was first floated and roughly two years after the board’s own final sign off.
| Detail | 2018 Scheme (Real Estate Division) | 2026 Scheme (Data Centres) |
|---|---|---|
| Resulting company | Anant Raj Global Limited | Ashok Cloud Private Limited |
| Share ratio to shareholders | 1 share for every 1 held | 1 share for every 1 held |
| Board approval | August 29, 2018 (first floated July 2016) | July 21, 2026 |
| Exchange approval | March 1, 2019 | Pending |
| NCLT approval | August 24, 2020 | Pending |
| Record date for new shares | October 7, 2020 | Not yet set |
| Parent’s stake in new company | Cancelled on demerger | Retained; stays a subsidiary |
That last row is the real difference. Back in 2018, Anant Raj’s own investment in ARGL was cancelled once the demerger completed, cutting the entity fully loose. This time, the company has said the scheme will not cancel its existing shareholding in Ashok Cloud, which will keep operating as its subsidiary even after ordinary shareholders get their 1:1 allotment. Anant Raj is keeping a tighter leash on this spin off than it did on the last one.
A regulatory filing from the 2018 scheme shows promoter holding held steady at 63.47 percent both before and after that restructuring, with the arrangement designed mainly to strip out a cross holding layer rather than change control. The spun off entity from that deal has since traded under a new name, TARC Limited, as an independent Delhi-NCR developer, evidence that Anant Raj’s demerger playbook does eventually deliver a working, separately listed company, just not quickly.
The market liked the idea both times. When Anant Raj first announced its 2018 demerger, shares jumped as much as 16.8 per cent in early trade the next session, clawing back some of a nearly 38 per cent slide over the prior six months. This week’s reaction has been calmer: a roughly 1.5 per cent gain, on a stock that has already re-rated hard on the data centre story long before this scheme showed up.
How Many Approvals Does Ashok Cloud Still Need?
Ashok Cloud still needs sign off from four separate bodies before any share lands in a shareholder’s demat account: Anant Raj’s own shareholders and creditors, both stock exchanges, India’s market regulator, and finally the tribunal that handled the 2018 case too.
- Approval from Anant Raj Ltd’s shareholders and creditors
- Sign off from BSE Limited and the National Stock Exchange of India
- Clearance from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI)
- Final approval from the National Company Law Tribunal under Sections 230 to 232 of the Companies Act, 2013
None of those approvals have a published timeline yet. The company has not said when it expects the NCLT process to begin, let alone finish.
What the Market Is Already Pricing In
Investors did not need Tuesday’s announcement to notice Anant Raj’s data centre pivot. By the start of last year, the stock had already zoomed nearly 200 per cent over the prior twelve months on the strength of that story, according to reporting from January 2025, comfortably outrunning the Sensex’s 9.5 per cent gain over the same stretch. Emkay Global has kept a buy rating on the stock with a target price of Rs 800 after visiting the Panchkula and Manesar sites directly.
None of that valuation currently separates the real estate business from the data centre one. Ashok Cloud is supposed to fix that. Whether it fixes it on the 2018 timeline or faster is the only real open question left.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Is a Composite Scheme of Arrangement?
It is a single court supervised process that bundles more than one corporate change, in this case an amalgamation and a demerger, into one scheme cleared under Sections 230 to 232 of the Companies Act, 2013. Anant Raj is using the same legal structure it used for its 2018 real estate spin off.
What Is Ashok Cloud Private Limited?
Ashok Cloud is the new entity set to hold Anant Raj’s entire data centre and cloud services business once the scheme takes effect, including the Manesar, Panchkula and planned Rai facilities. It will operate as a separately listed company focused solely on digital infrastructure.
What Happens to Anant Raj Cloud Private Limited (ARCPL)?
ARCPL, the subsidiary that signed the Andhra Pradesh data centre memorandum in November 2025, gets amalgamated into Anant Raj Ltd first. Its operations then move into Ashok Cloud as part of the demerged undertaking, folding that Andhra Pradesh commitment into the new listed entity.
Do Anant Raj Shareholders Need to Do Anything Right Now?
No. Nothing happens until the scheme clears the NCLT, SEBI and both exchanges. A record date fixing exactly who qualifies for Ashok Cloud shares will only be announced after those approvals are in hand, a step that came roughly two years after board approval in the 2018 case.
What Face Value Will Ashok Cloud Shares Carry?
Each Ashok Cloud share will carry a face value of Rs 2, matching Anant Raj Ltd’s own share denomination, according to the company’s scheme announcement.
