Centrum Financial Services-promoted Unity Small Finance Bank has entered into agreements to purchase 168,000 sq ft of office space in Mumbai‘s Santacruz suburb and Navi Mumbai‘s Seawoods area for a total of nearly Rs 393 crore.
Of this, the bank will be paying Rs 227 crore for the Santacruz office, which will be In a proposed slum rehabilitation project.
The bank has paid Rs 165.60 crore for the office in Navi Mumbai, showed data from Propstack, a real estate data & analytics firm.
It paid a stamp duty of Rs 13.62 crore for the registration of the Santacruz office deal that took place on June 18, according to documents accessed through FloorTap.com. The deal for the Navi Mumbai office was also registered on the same day.
The deals for outright purchase of the space, instead of the current trend of office leasing, indicates the bank’s long-term commitment and growth plans.
The bank is purchasing the entire second to fifth floors, as well as parts of the upper basement and the ground floor of Unity Towers in Santacruz from the project’s developer, Intercon Constructions (India). As part of the deal, the bank will get exclusive access to 120 car parking slots in the project.
The developer of the Santacruz project received a letter of intimation (LOI) and approval from the Slum Rehabilitation Authority for the project in August 2023. It has also acquired additional land adjacent to the existing plot and is expected to apply for an amended LOI and approvals to include the additional land too.
The bank, as per the agreement, has paid more than 10% of the price for Santacruz office and the remaining amount is expected to be paid in instalments based on the construction milestones achieved and certified by a project management consultancy firm
Unity Small Finance Bank did not respond to ET’s email seeking comment, while Intercon Constructions declined to comment.
The bank has reported nearly five-fold sequential growth in net profit at Rs 143 crore for the quarter ended March 31. Payment services firm BharatPe holds a 49% stake in the scheduled commercial bank.
India’s top seven office property markets have registered 13.8% on-year growth in gross leasing at over 15.16 million sq ft during the first quarter of 2024, showed a recent report.
This marked the third consecutive quarter where gross leasing has surpassed the 15 million sq ft mark, following an all-time high of 20.94 million sq ft in the fourth quarter of 2023 and 16.03 million sq ft in the preceding three months.
