Ascendas India Trust deepens presence in Hyderabad

Ascendas property Fund Trustee Pte. Ltd, the Trustee-Manager of Ascendas India Trust (“a-iTrust”) has announced on Thursday, that it has entered into a forward purchase agreement with Phoenix Infocity Pvt to acquire two buildings, aVance 5 & 6, with a combined leasable area of 1.8 million square feet, in aVance Business Hub, located in HITEC City, Hyderabad.  a-iTrust has also entered into a separate arrangement with the Vendor to acquire five additional buildings in aVance Business Hub 2, a Special Economic Zone adjacent to aVance Business Hub. aVance Business Hub comprises 10 buildings with total leasable area of 4.6 million square feet; of which nine buildings with 3.4 million square feet have been completed and leased to leading IT companies the likes of HCL, Cognizant, IBM and Amazon. To date, a-iTrust has acquired four buildings aggregating 1.5 million square feet. Mr.Sanjeev Dasgupta, Chief Executive Officer of the Trustee-Manager 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.”