Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management is in talks to strike a deal for the office projects of Bengaluru-based developer RMZ Corp, a person in the know told VCCircle.
“The deal, conceptualised very recently, has been initiated keeping in mind Brookfield’s proposed real estate investment trust (REIT) for commercial assets. A ready set of projects will immediately add scale and size to the REIT (expected to list by March-end 2021). The deal also helps RMZ deleverage its books,” the person said.
Brookfield is planning to pick up 50% stake across office projects of RMZ, people in the know told The Times of India.
The deal will be worth around Rs 4,000-5,600 crore ($535-750 million), the people said.
For the deal, the developer will create a special purpose vehicle (SPV), housing 10 office projects across Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Delhi-NCR.
Brookfield will then pick up the stake in the SPV, they said asking not to be named.
The investor has already “entered into a 90-day lock-in period’ for due diligence, the people added.
It has a ready portfolio of 28 million square feet of office space in the country and an under-construction portfolio of 4-5 million sq ft.
Brookfield has pumped around $2.5 billion in the country’s real estate market so far and is looking at adding retail assets to its portfolio.
Earlier this year, RMZ inked a 50:50 joint venture of up to $1 billion with Mitsui Fudosan (Asia) Pte. Ltd.
The joint venture will first develop a 3.5 million sq ft office space called RMZ Ecoworld 30 in Bengaluru’s outer ring road area. The venture is also planning to expand to regions such as Mumbai and National Capital Region (NCR).
RMZ, founded in 2002, controls assets of around 87 million sq ft. The privately-owned entity says it has over 250 enterprise customers in regions such as Bengaluru, Mumbai, NCR, Chennai, Hyderabad and Pune.