SP Infocity hosts a number of multinationals, including Ford Motor
Mapletree Investments has purchased an information technology park in Chennai, India, from the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and its Indian partner for C$250 million ($187 million) as part of the Singaporean property developer and fund manager’s plan to expand and diversify its overseas holdings.
CPPIB had purchased the park, SP Infocity, in 2015 in a joint venture known as SPREP with Mumbai-based Shapoorji Pallonji Investment Advisors. The Canadian pension fund manager said that divesting itself of the property was in line with its “original plan” for India, but that it would continue “to explore new investments alongside current partners as well as new partnerships in the market.”
Global property firm JLL, along with PricewaterhouseCoopers and AZB & Partners, were among the advisors to the joint venture’s sale of the property, which was originally reported to have been sold in late November.
Host of Global Corporates
CPPIB’s Anrdea Orlandi says the pension fund manager still has plans for India
The IT park has a gross leasable area of 2.7 million square feet (251,000 square metres). The suburban office facility houses a number of global corporates including US carmaker Ford Motor, which runs its global business services unit from the park, as well as regional offices of Amazon, HSBC and BNP Paribas.
Mapletree, whose strategic focus is “to invest in markets and real estate sectors with good growth potential” as it seeks high returns, currently manages four Singapore-listed REITs and six private equity real estate funds that hold a variety of properties in Asia Pacific and also in the United States and Britain.
Mapletree Heads Back to India
The purchase of the IT park marked the Singaporean government-linked firm’s first major investment in India since 2011, when it acquired Assetz Global Technology Park in Bengaluru. A person with knowledge of Mapletree’s investment plan in India was quoted by Indian financial website LiveMint as saying the Infocity deal was part of Mapletree’s plan to move into the Indian logistics space.
“In India, it will do a mix of acquisitions as well as work on brownfield or greenfield projects with select developer partners,” the person said.
CPPIB, which is headquartered in Toronto, operates a fund worth C$368.3 billion, and it focuses its investments in real estate, infrastructure, public and private equities, and fixed-income instruments and has offices around the world.
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