Singapore-listed Ascendas India Trust said on Friday it has agreed to purchase an IT park in Pune for as much as Rs 981 crore ($140.7 million) that includes project funding and land-related payments.
Ascendas Property Fund Trustee Pte. Ltd, which manages the trust, signed a pact with Nalanda Shelter Pvt. Ltd and Brickmix Developers Pvt. Ltd to acquire BlueRidge 3, an IT/ITeS special economic zone project at Hinjewadi in Pune.
The project will be developed in two phases and will have two office buildings and a cafeteria block. It will have a total net leasable area of up to 1.8 million square feet. The project is located near BlueRidge 2, an existing asset within the portfolio, Ascendas said.
Ascendas Property CEO Sanjeev Dasgupta said the proposed acquisition of BlueRidge 3 will strengthen the company’s presence in Hinjewadi and help its tenants to gain economies of scale and cater to their future expansion.
Deal details
The trust said that, initially and during the construction period, it will make the investment through debt to be used towards repayment of certain existing liabilities and construction. The forward-purchase acquisition will be after completion of the project and is subject to receipt of occupancy certificate and other key conditions.
In the first phase, the fund—through unit International Tech Park Ltd—will provide inter-corporate deposits to Nalanda Shelter amounting to Rs 61.2 crore. Nalanda will use the funds to partly repay an existing loan and make balance payments to buy the land.
The trust will then subscribe to rupee-denominated offshore bonds issued by Nalanda amounting to Rs 431.5 crore. After obtaining the occupancy certificate, the trust will acquire Nalanda shares by paying a top-up. The total estimated purchase price for the first phase, which will have net leasable area of 1.4 million square feet, will be Rs 739 crore.
In the second phase, the trust will provide construction funding of Rs 125 crore to Brickmix Developers. After obtaining the occupancy certificate of the second phase, the trust will acquire Brickmix shares by paying a top-up. The total estimated purchase price for the second phase will be Rs 242 crore.
Ascendas
Ascendas India Trust was listed in August 2007. Its main aim is to own income-producing real estate used primarily as business space in India. The trust is managed Ascendas Property Fund, which is a subsidiary of Ascendas-Singbridge Group.
The trust has a portfolio of seven IT business parks and six warehouses in India. These include the International Tech Parks in Bengaluru and Chennai, CyberVale in Chennai and Arshiya warehouses near Mumbai.
The deal for the Pune IT park follows two similar transactions it struck last year in Navi Mumbai and Hyderabad as part of efforts to diversify its portfolio of office assets in India.
In May 2018, the trust agreed to purchase two buildings at the Aurum IT SEZ at Navi Mumbai for up to Rs 930 crore.
Also in May, the trust decided to purchase five buildings in an information technology special economic zone in Hyderabad. And in August, it agreed to buy two more buildings in the same office park for up to Rs 1,400 crore.
