New York based Brahma Corp wants to invest Rs 1,700crore in Gurugram commercials

By Realty Quarter Bureau

FDI-funded realty firm Brahma group is entering commercial real estate space and will invest Rs 1,700 crore to develop an office-cum-retail project at Gurugram.

New York-based Brahma group is an asset management company focusing on the Indian real estate sector.

The company is developing over 200 acre township project at Panchkula in partnership with real estate major DLF. About 1,800 villas have already been delivered in this project.

Brahma group has also tied up with Adani Realty to develop a housing project ‘Samsara’ on 141 acre land in Gurugram.

“We are entering commercial real estate project. We are developing a mixed-use project on over 12 acre land parcel at Gurugram comprising 1.3 million sq ft of leasable area,” Brahma Centre Development Vice President Puneet Khullar told. The project, which is located on Delhi-Gurugram expressway, will have 4 lakh sq ft of office space and rest would be retail, food and entertainment.

The construction work is going on in this project and completion is expected by the end of next year, he said.

Asked about investment, Khullar said the project cost is around Rs 1,700 crore and the same is being met through internal accruals and debt. The company has not yet started the leasing process and will soon appoint property consultants for this purpose, he added.

Unlike housing sector, the commercial real estate is doing fairly well and has been attracting huge investments from both domestic and foreign players. Recently, DLF promoters sold 40 per cent of their stake in rental arm DLF Cyber City Developers (DCCDL) for Rs 12,000 crore. This deal included the sale of 33.34 per cent stake to Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC for Rs 9,000 crore.

To boost investment in the commercial real estate space, the government has introduced a new instrument called the Real Estate Investment Trust (REITs) through which developers can monetise their rent-yielding assets.