Bengaluru-based real estate developer, RMZ, Thursday said it will partner with Canadian pension fund Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) to enter the Mumbai market with its latest office park asset, for an investment of about $750 million.
RMZ Nexus will be located on the Jogeshwari-Vikhroli Link Road in Mumbai spanning across 3.74 million square feet with six towers within the vicinity. The office park asset is expected to be completed by 2027.
“We are poised to further expand our portfolio across Mumbai and other strategic markets, shaping the future of real estate and contributing to India's continued economic ascendance," said Thirumal Govindraj, the chief executive of RMZ Office & RMZ NXT.
The development comes soon after JV sold One Paramount 1, an office asset located in Chennai, to Singapore-based Keppel Corporation for $264 million in August. The Candian investor reaped $52 million from this stake sale to Keppel.
RMZ and CPP Investments continue to hold stakes in additional core and under development commercial assets spread across five cities with a total area of about 12.5 million square feet, the two parties said in August.
Other office assets developed under their partnership include RMZ Nexity and RMZ Spire in Hyderabad.
The first partnership between the two entities was announced in April 2021 where CPPIB said it will invest $210 million to develop and hold commercial spaces in Chennai and Hyderabad.
The investment was expected to help develop 10.4 million square feet of commercial office sites. At the time of the announcement, three sites being developed by RMZ – RMZ Nexity, RMZ Spire and RMZ One Paramount – were taken in as part of the portfolio for the JV.
Later, in 2022, the two entities announced another joint venture wherein RMZ and CPPIB will develop and hold commercial spaces across key market in India. CPPIB’s investment via this JV was expected to be to the tune of $449 million. The seed assets for this JV included StarTech – a 1.37 million-square-foot Grade A office building located in Koramangala, Bengaluru, then co-owned by RMZ and Prestige Estates.
Last month, the Bengaluru-based developer also partnered with London’s Colt Data Center Services to invest upto $1.7 billion into India’s data center market. The joint venture platform will first start investing in the ongoing development of three data center projects located in Navi Mumbai and Ambattur, Chennai, while another site will be added later.
So far, RMZ has delivered upto 75 million square feet of assets, of which, about 21 million square feet of office spaces are in different stages of construction, per last November. Its commercial assets have a 98% occupancy rate. It services clients including multinationals such UPS Technologies, Haleon, Planview, Booking Holdings, DOW Chemical, Nielsen IQ, and HSBC Software, among others.