Reuters
Brookfield India Real Estate Trust (BIRET) has signed a binding agreement to acquire a 50% stake in four Bharti Enterprises for 60 billion rupees including debt, it said on Thursday.
The deal will take place through a preferential allotment of units in BREIT at Rs. 300 per unit to Bharti Enterprises, which owns telecom operator Bharti Airtel, in exchange for the stake. The properties, some of which are used for commercial purposes, while others host offices and retail stores, are located in New Delhi and Gurugram and measure a total of 3.3 million square feet area. The area value at Rs. 6,000 crore.
A boom in companies setting up offices in India, coupled with pot-pandemic return-to-office requirements and strong retail competition, have boosted optimism for commercial properties.
With 25.5 million square feet of total leasable area, BIRET is India’s fourth-largest listed REIT by market capitalization, after Embassy Office Parks, Nexus Select Trust, and Mindspace Business Parks REIT. With this development, Bharti Enterprises will be the second-largest unitholder in BIRET, India’s only 100% institutionally managed office REIT, with an ownership stake of 8.53%, the company said.
Ankur Gupta, Managing Partner, Head of Real Estate for the Asia-Pacific Region, Brookfield said, “We are pleased to extend our partnership with Bharti through this strategic venture making them significant investors in BIRET. With this acquisition, we add New Delhi to our portfolio making BIRET the most diverse office REIT in India. These high-quality assets with strong tenancy also increase our retail operating area to 1 million square feet.”
On the development, Harjeet Kohli, Joint MD, Bharti Enterprises said, “With this transaction, Brookfield through its two managed vehicles, will own 100% stake in the four marquee asset originally developed by Bharti Realty. With an over 8.5% stake in REIT, Bharti is excited to take its partnership with Brookfield forward through a meaningful ownership in their listed portfolio of high quality assets.”
He further said, Bharti also plans to invest massively in the development of 10 million square feet of Grade ‘A’ commercial real estate in Aerocity, Delhi.
