The private equity real estate arm of Singapore-based The Xander Group Inc on Wednesday said its industrial platform has acquired one million square feet (sq ft) of warehousing space in Free Trade and Warehousing Zone (FTWZ) at Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu.
Xander didn't disclose investment details.
The value of the acquisition by Xander Investment Management is about Rs 400-500 crore ($53.8-67.3 million), said a person familiar with the development.
Xander already owns one million sq ft in FTWZ and the new acquisition will double its ownership in the park.
The investment is part of its $250 million industrial platform.
Notified as the first FTWZ in India, and recently approved as a multi-sector special economic zone, the park provides Grade-A warehousing and industrial facilities to global operators and manufacturers. Current occupiers include companies such as DHL, DB Schenker, Kerry Indev, TVS Supply Chain and Seaways Supply Chain.
The FTWZ is located on the Chennai-Bengaluru Industrial Corridor (CBIC) with connectivity to Chennai, Ennore and Kamarajar Ports, which together account for nearly 20% of container traffic in the country.
It is also close to industrial belts such Oragadam, Maraimalai Nagar, Tiruvallur and Kanchipuram, which are home to a number of electronics and auto and auto ancillary companies.
Xander has been ramping up its warehousing platform steadily. Earlier this year, it acquired a 31-acre logistics park in Bagnan, located in West Bengal’s Howrah district, in its first warehousing investment in eastern India.
Xander also leased around 1.1 million sq ft of warehousing space to e-commerce firms Amazon India and Walmart-owned Flipkart in Bhiwandi, Maharashtra this year.
According to the recent ‘India Warehousing Market Report – 2021’, Knight Frank India projected warehousing transactions for the top eight Indian cities (primary markets) to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 19% to 76.2 million sq ft by 2025-2026 from 31.7 million sq ft in 2020-21.
Despite decline, Mumbai remained the most expensive prime warehouse rental market in the country, followed by Bengaluru.
“The warehousing sector in India witnessed a marginal impact of the second wave of pandemic as the occupiers were well geared for negating the exigencies. More than half of the area transacted in top Indian warehousing markets were recorded in prime asset properties. The warehousing markets in primary and secondary Indian markets are likely to remain resilient in coming months,” said Shishir Baijal, chairman and managing director, Knight Frank India.
