Mumbai; In the largest deal in office space segment in the country, American private equity major Blackstone has agreed to buy nearly 7 lakh square feet of office space in One BKC -- an eight-storey building -- from city-based developer Radius, for a reported Rs 2,500 crore.
One BKC is the most sought after central business district in the megapolis. The property is spread over a sprawling 1.5 million square feet and Blackstone is snapping up nearly half of the built-up space.
One BKC houses many leading names such as Bank of America, Trafigura, Cisco, Facebook, Amazon, ICBC, Shree Cement, Motherson Sumi, Hitachi and ICICI Prudential, among others.
As per reports, Radius will use the proceeds from the deal to repay Rs 1,600 crore it has taken from Indiabulls Housing Finance for the project.
Blackstone is also working on buying out Adani Realty’s 800,000 square feet commercial project, In-spire, for around Rs 1,900 cr in the same area, according to a media report.
As per a report put out by real estate advisory firm Knight Frank, office rents in Bengaluru and Mumbai saw an increase of 17% and 5% year-on-year, respectively, in the first half of this calendar year.
With around USD 10.4 billion investments in the country since 2005, Blackstone is the largest global investor in the domestic realty market with an exposure of over USD 5.4 billion.
While Radius has confirmed the deal with Blackstone, it refused to divulge details, including valuation. Blackstone has been pumping money across the sector and of the total investment, USD 6.6 billion were pumped in the past four years alone.
In April, Blackstone announced its plans to acquire a majority stake in packaging company Essel Propack for Rs 3,211 crore, and in February it bought 97.7 percent stake in Aadhar.
Housing Finance by buying out Wadhawan Global Capital and DHFL for Rs 3,000 crore.
And, in May, Blackstone along with its partner Embassy also launched the country's first real estate investment trust, 'Embassy Office Parks REIT', which raised Rs 3000 crore.
