Singapore’s CapitaLand is set to acquire three industrial facilities in Chennai from Casa Grande Group, via its India property trust, helping it increase its exposure to industrial and logistics real estate.
SGX-listed CapitaLand India Trust, which invests in commercial properties in India, has entered into a forward purchase agreement with Casa Grande Group to acquire three industrial facilities with a total net leasable area of 0.79 million square feet in Chennai’s OneHub, for about Rs 268 crore or about $32.7 million. This includes partial funding for land acquisition and the total cost for asset development.
The transaction will be completed in three phases, with the first phase of the acquisition to be completed by the first half of 2025.
“The acquisition will diversify our portfolio and grow our industrial presence in Chennai, which is developing into an important hub for electronics component manufacturers in South India. It will also enable us to offer our tenants high-quality facilities at OneHub Chennai, an established industrial township with plug and play infrastructure,” Sanjeev Dasgupta, the chief executive of CapitaLand India Trust said.
With this acquisition, the property trust’s portfolio of industrial, logistics, and data center asset class will increase to 14% from 12% earlier.
OneHub, Chennai, where these properties will be developed, has an area of about 1,250 acres. The integrated industrial park is occupied by blue-chip companies including Hitachi Automotive Systems, Yamaha Music and Daicel Corporation.
Earlier, the two entities had partnered with the developer to acquire three industrial facilities at Mahindra World City. The acquisition was completed in December.
The property trust’s current portfolio in Chennai comprises two business parks (International Tech Park Chennai and CyberVale), three industrial facilities at Mahindra World City and a data centre under development in Ambattur which is expected to be completed in 2025.
CapitaLand India Trust’s overall portfolio includes nine IT business parks, three industrial facilities, one logistics park and four data centre developments in India, with total completed floor area of 19.6 million square feet spread across Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune and Mumbai
This announcement comes soon after CapitaLand Investment India, a subsidiary of Singapore-based CapitaLand Investment, said it is looking to shore up its exposure in Tamil Nadu across infra asset classes including IT parks, data centers and logistics parks, in the next five years, as it signed an MoU with the state government to shore up its exposure in the city.