Alternative investment firm Blackstone Group Inc has agreed to acquire the 50% stake it didn't already own in Indiabulls Real Estate Ltd's office assets for Rs 4,420 crore ($616 million).
Mumbai-listed Indiabulls Real Estate said in a stock-exchange filing on Wednesday that the stake sale is part of its efforts to achieve zero net debt in the current financial year.
US-based Blackstone will buy the Indian company's stake in their joint ventures--Indiabulls Properties Pvt. Ltd and Indiabulls Real Estate Company Pvt. Ltd, Yashita Buildcon Ltd and Ashkit Properties Ltd. While the first two JVs own commercial assets at Lower Parel in Mumbai, the other two own office properties in Gurugram.
Blackstone will also acquire Indiabulls Real Estate's commercial assets at Worli in Mumbai, New Delhi and Gurugram.
The proposed divestment is subject to execution of agreements and customary closing conditions, Indiabulls said in the filing.
The private equity firm had last year bought a 50% stake in two units of Indiabulls Real Estate. The deal included Indiabulls Finance Centre and One Indiabulls Centre in Mumbai, two key commercial properties in the country's financial capital.
Blackstone, which has one of the biggest portfolios of commercial real estate in India, has been actively buying out office buildings in the country.
The latest transaction will take Blackstone's investments in India's real estate sector to more than $6 billion. As on July, Blackstone had invested $5.4 billion across office buildings and retail assets. It had struck 33 transactions across the country and owns over 100 million sq ft in India.
In August, it had agreed to acquire Global Village Technology Park in Bengaluru from Coffee Day Enterprises Ltd for an amount between Rs 2,600 crore and Rs 3,000 crore ($365-421 million).
In July, it struck a deal to acquire an office building in Powai, Mumbai from L&T Realty Ltd, an arm of diversified conglomerate Larsen & Toubro Ltd for Rs 700 crore.
Prior to that, the PE firm bought One BKC for Rs 2,500 crore, a commercial real estate project of Sanjay Chhabaria's Radius Group in Mumbai's Bandra Kurla Complex business district.
