Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) and Indian real estate developer RMZ Corp have agreed a second office property investment venture.

CPP Investments intends to invest up to INR26.5bn (€308.6m) in the joint venture which plans to develop and hold commercial office space in key cities across India.

The new joint venture will be seeded with the 1.37m sqft StarTech office building located in Koramangala, Bangalore, which is currently co-owned by RMZ and Prestige Estates. CPP Investments will acquire Prestige’s entire stake in StarTech.

CPP Investments and RMZ Corp’s first office venture in India was announced in April last year.

Manoj Menda, corporate chairman, RMZ Corp said: “This joint venture will provide RMZ additional opportunities to forge new strategic financial co-investments and remain ahead of the curve whilst also significantly increasing capital allocation to the core and development asset portfolios.”

Menda said the two joint ventures together have been established to develop assets worth in excess of US$2.5bn across cities.

Arshdeep Sethi, senior managing director, RMZ Corp said, “This second joint venture builds on our existing partnership in Hyderabad and Chennai and reiterates RMZ’s strategic objective to expand the group’s asset base and development pipelines across other cities.”

Hari Krishna V, CPP Investments India real estate managing director, said, “We continue to identify high demand for premium commercial office space in top city locations in India, such as Bangalore. As the city grows as a destination for technology businesses and start-ups, we are working alongside market leaders, such as RMZ, to grow our portfolio to support the demand.

”Our overall focus remains to enhance our ability to deliver solid long-term risk-adjusted returns to CPP contributors and beneficiaries.”

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