Singapore’s GIC Said Buying Up to 50% of Mumbai Developer for $147M

In its fourth major Indian deal in less than a year, Singapore’s GIC is set to purchase up to 50 percent of Mumbai-based developer Provenance Land for 10 billion rupees ($147 million), according to a report in the Economic Times.

The reported deal could give the $100 billion Singaporean sovereign wealth fund half of the Indian company which owns the 202-room Four Seasons Hotel Mumbai as it sets out to expand its projects in the Indian commercial capital.

The transaction is said to have been under negotiation for one year already, and comes after foreign investment in Indian real estate grew 31 percent in 2017 over the previous year, according to a recent agency report.

GIC’s Fourth Major Deal in Last 12 Months

GIC’s prospective partner began developing the Four Seasons Private Residences in 2015, with 26 apartments on 55 floors planned to debut next to the five star hotel in Mumbai’s Worli area in 2020. The company is also building a 500,000 square foot (46,000 square metre) office complex on a two acre (8,000 square metre) site next to the hotel.

GIC’s potential investment in Provenance Land has not yet been officially announced by any of the parties involved.

GIC has been highly active in the Indian market. Just last month the fund purchased a $150 million stake in Godrej Properties, a Mumbai developer.

That deal was preceded in September 2017 by GIC teaming up with local developer K Raheja Corp to purchase a three acre site in Mumbai for six billion rupees ($89 million) from Siemens. Just one month earlier, in August 2017, it acquired 33 percent of DLF Cyber City Developers(DCCDL), the property rental subsidiary of Gurgaon-based builder DLF, for $1.4 billion.

GIC is also selling. A partnership between Allanz and the Shapoorji Pallonji Group is said to be in the process of acquiring the 2.3 million square foot WaveRock office park in Hyderabad from GIC and Tishman Speyer.

India’s PE Boom Gains Steam

During the first quarter of 2018, private equity funds made $2.6 billion in commitments to Indian real estate deals up 15 percent on year, according to a report from Cushman & Wakefield. During the first six months fo the year, industry leaders including Blackstone and Singapore’s Ascendas-Singbridge were among those joining GIC in buying new property assets in the country.

In July, Blackstone acquired One Indiabulls Park, a 1.9 million square foot office block in Chennai from India Bulls, for eight billion rupees. That deal came after the US alternative investment titan had paid $730 million in March to purchase a fifty percent stake in a pair of office projects in Mumbai from the same company.

Singapore’s Ascendas-Singbridge Group as also active this year, announcing a S$400 million ($300 million) investment programme with government giant Temasek Holdings to develop a portfolio of as much as 15 million square feet (1.39 million square metres) of industrial real estate projects in India during June. That deal came just one month after Ascendas India Trust, which is managed by Ascendas-Singbridge, agreed to buy two buildings under development in a Mumbai-area tech park for up to S$186 million ($139 million).