Allianz Real Estate has expanded its presence in the Indian commercial office market investing US$150m (€134m) in a closed-end office development platform.
Allianz, an unnamed European pension manager and Indian conglomerate Godrej Group, will each own a third of the Godrej BTC (GBTC I) office development fund.
Godrej Fund Management will act as the investment manager.
GBTC I – which will target the development of premium offices in tier-one cities – has already secured two developments, one each in Mumbai and Gurgaon, which will offer a total of 2m sqft of lettable space.
The platform also has a pipeline of 1.3m sqft in Bangalore.
Rushabh Desai, Asia-Pacific CEO of Allianz Real Estate, said: “We are confident that the platform will deliver upon completion a premium office product that is increasingly sought after by multinational tenants operating in India.”
The company said the investment with Godrej aligned with Allianz’s strategy to allocate 50-60% of its real estate exposure within the Asia-Pacific to fast-growing markets.
In 2017, Allianz set up a US$500m real estate fund with Shapoorji Pallonji. Allianz owns 50% of the fund, and other institutional investors hold the remaining interest in the fund, domiciled in Singapore.
Last year, Allianz established a US$1bn logistics platform with the pan-Asian logistics group ESR to acquire logistics facilities in India. Allianz contributed half of the equity for an initial US$225m capitalisation of the 50-50 joint venture.
“We continue to believe in the long-term growth prospects of the Indian economy,” said Desai.
“Strong demographic trends and improving transparency are supporting real estate occupier as well as investor demand, in particular, the office sector, which is ideal for long-term institutional investors such as Allianz.”
