GIC Joins Forces With Brookfield on $1B India Office Partnership

Singapore sovereign fund GIC and Canadian asset manager Brookfield have formed a partnership to own and manage three India office properties with a total value of $1 billion, market sources confirmed to Mingtiandi.

The seed assets of the partnership are Brookfield’s Equinox office park in Mumbai and two GIC-owned properties at Bhartiya City in Bengaluru and Phoenix Aquila in Hyderabad, the sources said. India’s Moneycontrol news portal first reported on the deal Monday.

The initial portfolio comprises 5.5 million square feet (510,967 square metres) of operating office assets and extends the companies’ relationship after the $800 billion Singaporean fund formed a joint venture with Brookfield India REIT two years ago to acquire commercial assets in Mumbai and Gurugram with a combined enterprise value of $1.4 billion.

GIC had not responded to queries seeking comment on the deal at the time of publication and Brookfield representatives declined to comment.

Central Mumbai Campus

The four-building Equinox campus spans 10 acres (4 hectares) near the Bandra Kurla Complex, Mumbai’s central business district, and provides 1.3 million square feet of office space.

Brookfield acquired Equinox from developer Essar Group in 2018 for an enterprise value of INR 24 billion, with an industry source telling Moneycontrol this week that the asset’s value has since climbed to INR 40 billion ($450 million).

GIC picked up the commercial components of Bhartiya City, a 125 acre township in Bengaluru, from developer Bhartiya Group in 2022 for INR 28 billion, gaining control of 3 million square feet of commercial space. The following year the fund completed its acquisition of a 1.1 million square foot tower at Phoenix Group’s Phoenix Aquila office complex in Hyderabad for INR 10.5 billion after signing a forward purchase deal in 2020, sources told the Economic Times.

In May 2023, GIC and Brookfield India REIT announced their 50:50 JV to buy two commercial assets held by funds managed by the latter’s sponsor, in a deal characterised at the time as a first-of-its-kind partnership in India between a global institutional investor and a listed REIT.

The acquisition included properties in Brookfield’s Downtown Powai in Mumbai and Candor TechSpace Sector 48 in Gurugram, encompassing 6.5 million square feet of commercial space.

International Beacon

Gross leasing volume in India’s office market totalled 20 million square feet in the April-June period, marking the highest-ever reading for a second quarter, and reached 39.5 million square feet for the first half, up 17.6 percent from H1 2024, according to JLL.

New office completions totalled 14.8 million square feet during the second quarter, up 30.8 percent year-on-year, as office vacancy in India’s top seven cities stood at 16.1 percent, down 90 basis points from a year earlier.

“India is a shining beacon on the international office market stage as it appears to be immune to the global uncertainties and headwinds,” the consultancy said. “The market is tuned towards growth — across both headcount and real estate footprint metrics, even as robust office occupancies are already causing a space crunch in existing portfolios of large occupiers.”