MUMBAI: ICICI Prudential Asset Management Company has acquired an entire commercial tower in Mumbai’s western suburb Santacruz for over Rs 315 crore from realty developer Kalpataru’s subsidiary Ixora Properties.
The newly acquired tower, built on one-third of an acre, is likely to house the asset management company’s new head office.
The office building, one of the towers of Kalpataru Infinia, with ground plus 12-storey structure along with three basements, has a carpet area of over 60,000 sq ft. The other tower of this project, with over 120,000 sq ft office space, is currently under construction.
The deal assumes significance in the backdrop of ongoing trend of leasing office space as against buying it on an outright basis.
The asset management company has paid over Rs 18.90 crore as stamp duty for the registration of the transaction that took place on June 27, showed documents accessed through FloorTap(dot)com, a marketplace for commercial properties.
“The asset management company is planning to shift its corporate office from Bandra-Kurla Complex to this newly purchased office property. The fit out work at this new office is expected to commence soon and the company is looking to start operating from here by next year,” said a person close to the development.
India’s second largest asset management company’s average assets under management stood at Rs 8.03 lakh crore as on June end.
The commercial tower, which is five minutes drive from the company’s existing corporate office in Bandra-Kurla Complex, has 114 vehicle parking slots.
ET’s separate email queries to ICICI Prudential AMC and Kalpataru remained unanswered until the time of going to press.
Recently, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company also picked up 252,000 sq ft of office space in IT park Mindspace in Mumbai’s Malad west suburb, for what will be its largest back-office facility. This is one of the largest office lease transactions concluded in the country so far this year.Last year, ICICI Securities, the financial services company of ICICI Bank, picked up more than 188,000 sq ft of office space in IT park Mindspace Juinagar in Navi Mumbai through a lease of over 12 years.
The Indian office sector has been seeing sustained growth in demand despite the global sluggishness, and the performance is seen as a testament to the strong fundamentals of demand and the absence of any lasting effects of the global headwinds.
Net absorption in India’s top seven office markets breached the 40 million sq ft mark in 2023 to touch 41.97 million sq ft, showed industry data. This not only marked a new post-Covid milestone but also positioned it as the second highest annual absorption, trailing only the levels recorded in 2019.
