In the biggest commercial real estate lease transactions ever, global financial services major Morgan Stanley has concluded a deal for office space spread over 1.1 million sq ft in Mumbai’s Goregaon suburb entailing total rental payout of more than Rs 2,122 crore over nearly a decade.
The company has leased the space spread over 16 floors of commercial tower Oberoi Commerz III for a total term of nine-and-a-half years through its India arm, Morgan Stanley Advantage Services.
In July 2020, in the largest office leasing transactions in the middle of the Covid19 pandemic, the US-based bank had finalised the deal to lease 1.1 million sq ft in this over 40-storey tower, one of the tallest mixed-use office towers in the country. This deal has now been concluded.
The company has paid a security deposit worth Rs 104.9 crore for the transaction that was registered in the last week of August, showed the documents accessed through realty data analytics firm Propstack.
This is the largest space taken up by any company through a single deal this year. Commerz III, a 2.9-million-sq-ft mixed-use tower, is part of larger layout Oberoi Garden City spread over 80 acres, which is a premium mixed-use development in Goregaon located adjacent to the upcoming metro station.
“This significant investment underscores Morgan Stanley’s long-term commitment to our employees. India plays an integral role as in the Firm’s performance and as a center of exceptional talent,” said Arun Kohli, Country Head of India, Morgan Stanley. “The new office campus will provide our employees a modern workplace experience that fosters a sense of community while enabling them to drive innovation and deliver results.”
Morgan Stanley will be consolidating its Mumbai Global In-house Centre (GIC) operations to this single campus in the city. The investment bank established the Mumbai GIC in 2003 and the Bengaluru GIC in 2014 to support its global institutional securities, wealth management and investment management businesses.
The commercial tower is expected to become the base for one of the largest global insourcing centres (GICs) in Mumbai. This additional take up is testimony to the trend being witnessed across India office real estate with a number of multinational companies significantly growing their captive GICs, thereby validating the availability of abundant talent pool in the country as being India’s key strength.
ET’s email query to Oberoi Realty remained unanswered until the time of going to press.
The global investment bank has been operating in India since 1993, and has an institutional securities platform, offering a range of investment banking, capital markets, equities, fixed income, private equity and derivative products, research, as well as growing investment management businesses.
The Indian office sector has been witnessing sustained growth despite a sluggish global market environment marked by economic uncertainties. This robust performance is seen as a testament to the strong underlying fundamentals and absence of any lasting impact of global headwinds.
According to recent JLL India data, the office market surged to its best-ever first half in the period ended June with gross leasing of 33.5 million sq ft, up 29% from a year ago, surpassing the previous record of 30.71 million sq ft in the first half of 2019.
