One of the biggest owners of commercial real estate in the country, Blackstone Group, has acquired an office building in Powai, Mumbai from L&T Realty, an arm of business conglomerate Larsen & Toubro, people familiar with the development told VCCircle.
The investor has picked up the roughly 400,000 square foot space in the L&T business park for around Rs 700 crore (about $102 million at current exchange rate), the people said.
The deal marks the second transaction between L&T Realty and Blackstone. In 2016, the US-based investor had bought for about Rs 1,350 crore Seawoods Grand Central Mall in Navi Mumbai from L&T Realty, spread across one million square feet.
Both L&T and Blackstone declined to comment on the story. The development was first reported by Mint.
Recently, Blackstone concluded a long-pending deal to buy a marquee commercial asset in Mumbai for Rs 2,500 crore as it continues to grow its India portfolio.
India's commercial real estate has been a strong performing segment in the country’s real estate market in the past few years. A number of deals have been sealed among the biggest developers and investors in the country. Last year, the ecosystem saw the listing of the first Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) in India with Embassy Office Parks going public.
Blackstone’s bets
Blackstone has so far put in $5.4 billion in Indian real estate across office buildings and retail assets. It has done 33 transactions in the country.
In March last year, Blackstone agreed to acquire a 50% stake in two subsidiaries of listed developer Indiabulls Real Estate Ltd in one of the biggest private equity deals in the Indian real estate sector.
In July last year, Blackstone agreed to buy a commercial property in Chennai from Indiabulls Real Estate for Rs 850 crore ($123 million).