Ascendas India Trust buys 2 buildings in Hyderabad for $270m

One building will be completed by 2019 whilst the other is already 98% leased to Amazon.

Ascendas India Trust (a-iTrust) acquired two buildings, aVance 5 & 6, with a combined leasable area of 1.8 million sqft in aVance Business Hub in HITEC City, Hyderabad. The total consideration price is $270m.

According to an announcement, aVance 5 (1.16 million sqft) is under construction and expected to be completed by the second half of 2019. aVance 6 (640,000 sqft) is completed and 98% leased to Amazon. Both buildings will be acquired together after the completion of aVance 5, subject to required leasing levels being met, amongst other conditions.

aVance Business Hub comprises 10 buildings with total leasable area of 4.6 million sqft of which nine buildings with 3.4 million square feet have been completed and leased to IT companies like HCL, Cognizant, IBM and Amazon. a-iTrust has previously acquired four buildings aggregating 1.5 million sqft.

It will also acquire five additional buildings in aVance Business Hub 2, a 14.4-acre Special Economic Zone adjacent to aVance Business Hub. "These five buildings will be acquired individually when completed, subject to required leasing levels being met, amongst other conditions," a-iTrust said.

a-iTrust CEO Sanjeev Dasgupta said, “The proposed acquisition of aVance 5 & 6 will allow us to deepen our presence in Hyderabad, which is currently witnessing robust rental growth arising from healthy demand from global IT companies. The Trust portfolio will increase to 16 million square feet once we complete the acquisition of AURUM IT SEZ and aVance 5 & 6. The opportunity to acquire an additional five buildings in future will allow the Trust to enjoy even greater economies of scale in Hyderabad, and further strengthen its competitiveness in the market.”