British multinational universal bank Barclays Bank Plc has picked up a sea-view front office space spread over two floors in a commercial tower in Mumbai’s plush Worli locality through a long-term lease totalling over 10 years.
The financial major’s India arm will be effectively paying a lease of nearly Rs 306 crores throughout the lease term for a total 64,000 sq ft office space on 32nd and 33rd floors of the office tower Altimus developed by realty developer K Raheja Corp’s subsidiary Whispering Heights Real Estate.
These offices will be used by Barclays India and Barclays Investments and Loans (India) Pvt Ltd. The total tenure of the lease agreement includes an initial period of five years and thereafter additional five years as per the renewal terms.
The London-headquartered bank’s India arm has paid an upfront deposit worth six months rent at the time of the registration of the deal that took place last week.
The lease rental has been set at Rs 320 per sq ft or over Rs 2.08 crore a month for the first year and will see 4.5% escalation after every 12 months, showed the documents accessed through FloorTap.com.
As per the agreement, the lease commences from January 1, while the commencement date for rent payment is set as July 1, 2024. As part of the deal, Barclays Bank gets exclusive access to over 51 car parking slots in the commercial tower.
The lessor, Whispering Heights Real Estate, is not entitled to terminate the lease agreement throughout the entire term, while the lessee will have a lock-in period of two years.
The commercial project spread over a land parcel of over 3 acres has more than 1 million sq ft leasable area and has recently received its occupancy certificate. According to property consultants, several entities from the banking and financial services sector are in talks to lease office space in the complex, which is one of the tallest office towers in South Mumbai central business district.
Barclays Bank declined to comment for the story, while ET’s email query to K Raheja Corp remained unanswered.
Recently, American multinational investment management and financial services company Morgan Stanley picked up front office space spread over two floors in this commercial tower through a long-term lease of over 9 years. The financial major will be paying a lease of over Rs 340 crores throughout the lease term for a total 86,200 sq ft office space on 39th and 40th floors of the tower.
In India, Barclays plc is one of the largest UK employers and employs over 23,000 people spread across its banking, technology, and shared services operations. It has had a branch presence in India since 1990, and is known for leading positions in business including corporate banking and investment banking.
India’s top eight office property markets witnessed buoyancy in demand reflecting strong occupier activity emphasising on the inherent economic strength of the country and robust annual growth amongst the large economies of the world.
In 2023, according to Knight Frank India data, total office transaction grew 15% to 59.6 million sq ft and this is historically the second-best year with the peak level achieved in the year 2019 of 60.6 million sq ft.
