Ivanhoé Cambridge has partnered with property developer Embassy Group to invest $500m (€413.6m) invest in office led business parks in India.

The 80:20 joint venture between the C$64bn (€41.5bn) real estate subsidiary of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec and the Indian property developer has been seeded with the first phase of the 60-acre Embassy East Business Park located in Whitefield Main Road in Bengaluru.

The partnership will initially focus on the Southern Indian markets of Bengaluru and Chennai.

Karim Habra, the head of Europe and Asia-pacific at Ivanhoé Cambridge, said: “This new venture with Embassy will allow us to reinforce our presence in India, a key country in our diversification strategy in Asia.

“Over the last couple of decades, several global corporations have acknowledged India as a scalable global innovation hub catalyzed by a deep, world-class talent pool. We anticipate this trend to accelerate thus supporting long term demand for sustainable, class A offices in mixed-use campus environments.”

Chanakya Chakravarti, managing director, India, at Ivanhoé Cambridge, said: “The healthy build-to-core economics, quality tenant covenants, deepening secondary markets and overall market formalization make for an interesting opportunity.”

Jitu Virwani, chairman and managing director at Embassy Group, said, “This partnership of Embassy Group and Ivanhoé Cambridge is a strategic step towards transforming the commercial real estate landscape in India. Through the Embassy-Ivanhoe commercial office platform, we aspire to develop state-of-the-art business parks in India.”

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