BentallGreenOak, a Canadian real estate investment firm, to acquire a part of Piramal Realty’s commercial development Agastya Corporate Park in Kurla in central Mumbai for more than $135.86 million. The deal would catapult BentallGreenOak, which is the real estate wing of the Canadian financial services firm Sun Life Financial Inc, into the real estate investment sector of India. With a total project size of 2 million sq ft, Primal’s Agastya is one of the nation’s largest non-IT commercial developments that is spread across 16 acre on LBS Marg. Half of the development project area, which has been completed, has been leased by BentallGreenOak. Other companies that occupy existing offices here are Piramal Enterprises, Piramal Learning University, and Pantaloons, which is a part of the Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail. French firms like Decathlon, a sports goods retailer, and Danone, which is a food products firm, also occupy offices in this project. According to the business daily The Economic Times, one of the people associated with the project said that the deal was expected to be concluded in the upcoming month and the term sheet had already been signed. Last year, private equity firms invested upwards of $5 billion in the Indian property sector. With increasing rentals, robust space uptake, and decreasing vacancy levels have strengthened the position of the Commercial real estate at the top. This sector has been the preferred location for investment for a myriad of global financial institutions. In the past few weeks, Prestige Group entered into a deal worth $1.5 billion with the Blackstone Group, whereas, Brookfield Asset Management extended a deal to RMZ group for their office assets, for $2 billion. At the start of the year 2020, when the nation faced a turbulent economy, the real estate sector witnessed investments worth $2.3 billion. Piramal Realty and the BentallGreenOak deal will see another major financial institution enter the commercial real estate market of the country. Image Source