A real estate platform set up by Allianz Real Estate and Shapoorji Pallonji Group has acquired Hyderabad office complex WaveRock for $250 million (about Rs 1,780 crore).
SPREF II, the Allianz-Shapoorji platform, bought the asset from a joint venture between Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC Pte Ltd and US-based developer Tishman Speyer.
“The acquisition of WaveRock represents the confidence of global institutional investors in the Indian commercial real estate growth story,” Rajesh Agarwal, CEO at Shapoorji Pallonji Investment Advisors, said in a statement.
“This investment is in line with our vision of creating a sustainable commercial real estate portfolio across key metros in India,” he added.
The development comes more than a year after VCCircle reported that the asset owner had shortlisted two bidders – Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and the Allianz-Shapoorji platform for WaveRock.
Completed in 2017, WaveRock comprises four office towers with a total leasable area of 2.4 million square feet. The building complex is located in the Gachibowli financial district, a high-growth IT hub. It is fully occupied and is home to marquee tenants such as Apple, Tata Consultancy Services and Accenture.
Allianz and Shapoorji had formed SPREF II in 2017 to invest in India’s office market. The platform has equity commitments of $500 million from its investors.
The statement said that SPREF's strategy is to leverage structural trends in six tier-one cities to build a long-term, cash-flow producing office portfolio by acquiring a blend of develop-to-core, forward purchases, and stabilised or stabilising assets. The six target cities are Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, Chennai and National Capital Region.
“This (WaveRock) is one of the marquee commercial developments in India and is a terrific addition to Allianz’s office portfolio in 24/7 global cities,” said Rushabh Desai, Asia Pacific CEO at Allianz Real Estate. “Office investments in India continue to offer attractive risk-adjusted returns.”
