Ascendas India buys Aurum Ventures' Navi Mumbai Commercial Tower

Singapore-based Ascendas Property Fund Trustee has acquired realty developer Aurum Ventures’ 16-storey fully-leased commercial tower spread over 6.2 lakh sq ft in Navi Mumbai’s Ghansoli locality for Rs 353 crore. The deal is among the largest acquisitions of a standalone commercial tower by a global institutional investor in the last few years. Ascendas Property Fund Trustee has acquired the multi-tenanted tower ‘Building Q1’ in Aurum Q Parc in its capacity as trustee-manager of Ascendas India Trust. The deal follows a forward purchase agreement Aurum Ventures and Ascendas India Trust had entered into in May 2018. The definitive agreements between both the entities have now been executed to acquire all of the issued share capital in Building Q1 for a gross consideration of around Rs 353 crore or Singapore $64.1 million. As part of the agreement, in addition to the gross consideration, Aurum will be paid for incremental leasing within 12 months from the date of the acquisition. “The acquisition of Building Q1 will enable a-iTrust to gain an operating presence in the strategic IT corridor of Navi Mumbai. The property is built to high quality specifications and is in close proximity to transport networks and large corporate campuses. We expect the property’s occupancy to stabilise by 2023. We will continue to diversify and strengthen our portfolio, while maintaining our firm commitment to deliver sustainable returns to our unitholders,” said Sanjeev Dasgupta, Chief Executive Officer of the Trustee-Manager. The said tower ‘Building Q1’ counts multinational companies such as Hexaware Technologies and FirstRand Services as its key tenants. Despite the Covid19 pandemic, leasing for the tower is underway and the leasing momentum in Navi Mumbai is on an upward trajectory. “Aurum Q Parc is one of the finest campuses in the country and has become a preferred destination for the banking, financial services and insurance industry. We believe that Aurum Q Parc is perfectly poised to cater to corporate India’s post pandemic real estate demand,” said Ashish Deora, CEO, Aurum Ventures. Building Q1 is the first of the two buildings covered in the May 2018 forward purchase agreement for the development of a 1.4 million sq ft IT park campus in Aurum Q Parc. Building Q2 is around 0.8 million square feet for which the occupancy certificate has been obtained and leasing commitments have been received. Aurum Ventures is adding an additional supply of up to 1.3 million square feet of Grade-A supply in Building Q3.