Ambuja Realty has acquired the RMZ block of Ecospace Business Park in New Town (Rajarhat), Kolkata, for an undisclosed sum, the company has said in a statement on Thursday. Real estate consultancy firm Jones Lang LaSalle India facilitated this deal.
The project, which is 80 per cent complete, encompasses about 9 lakh sq. ft. and the current price is estimated to be in the range of Rs 3,800-Rs 4,200 per sq. ft., Mayank Saksena, managing director at Jones Lang LaSalle India, said. Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that this would value the property between Rs 340-380 crore.
With this acquisition, Ecospace becomes one of the largest non-SEZ office spaces in Kolkata.
In September 2011, Chennai-based Kalpathi Group, with business interests in private equity and entertainment, acquired Rantech Towers, an IT park located in Chennai, for around Rs 50 crore.
The IT park, spread over 2.2 lakh sq. ft., is located at Sholinganallur (on Old Mahabalipuram Road) in Chennai. Of the eight-storey building, 15 per cent area will be for self-use by the group and the rest will be commercially leased/rented out to other IT companies.
Although the private equity action in Indian real estate sector has been muted, there have been a couple of large deals this year across income-generating developments. In February, Ascendas India Trust entered a deal to acquire a portfolio of five buildings in Phoenix Infocity Pvt Ltd’s SEZ for Rs 855 crore. Kotak Realty Fund also sold Peepul Tree Properties (an IT park in Goregaon) to Tata Realty and Infrastructure Ltd and Tata Realty Initiatives Fund 1 for Rs 525 crore ($117 million).
