Brookfield acquires 51% stake in Bharti Realty

Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management has acquired a 51% controlling stake in a Bharti Realty subsidiary that houses four marquee commercial properties near Delhi airport, Gurugram and Ludhiana.

Bharti Realty is the real estate arm of Sunil Mittal-founded Bharti Enterprises.

“Bharti Enterprises and Brookfield Asset Management today announced the successful closure of their joint venture agreement for a 3.3 million sq ft portfolio of high-quality commercial properties primarily located in the Delhi-NCR region,” Bharti Enterprises and Brookfield said in a joint statement Monday.

They added that as part of the deal, a Brookfield-managed private real estate fund now owns 51% in the joint venture (read: a Bharti Realty subsidiary), while Bharti Enterprises would hold the balance 49%.

The transaction was concluded based on an enterprise value of Rs 5,000 crore. The exact deal size couldn’t immediately be ascertained.

Following the high-profile property deal, Brookfield’s real estate operating arm, Brookfield Properties, will manage the properties, including Worldmark Aerocity in Delhi, Airtel Center and Worldmark 65 in Gurugram, and Pavillion Mall in Ludhiana.

Earlier, ET in its November 19, 2020, edition had reported that Bharti Realty was in talks with Brookfield to sell some of its marquee commercial properties near Delhi airport and in Gurgaon. Bharti Enterprises is also the holding company of Bharti Airtel, India’s second-largest telco. “This transaction with Brookfield for our marquee properties in North India is a significant milestone for us to partner with a global infrastructure investor with deep and rich experience and insights into real estate,” Harjeet Kohli, joint managing director, Bharti Enterprises, said in an official statement.

He added thatBharti would continue to invest substantially in developing more real estate assets to serve the growing demand for well-managed commercial real estate in India. “With a pipeline of over 10 million sq ft, this deal will become the template for the yielding and developed assets,”

Ankur Gupta, managing partner, head of real estate (APAC region and country head – India), Brookfield, in turn, said, that high quality real estate in global gateway markets, and in particular, the Indian office market, continue to witness high demand from occupiers. “We are excited about our partnership with Bharti which entails marquee assets with strong tenancy…we look forward to leveraging our global expertise to build future-ready office environments in India.”

In India, Brookfield owns and operates over 50 million sq ft of high-quality commercial real estate assets in all gateway markets of Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Pune, Hyderabad and Kolkata.