Big deal

Godrej Properties’ sale of 4.35 lakh sq ft in its 19-storey commercial tower Godrej BKC in Bombay’s Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) to the multi-product pharmaceutical company Abbott India, "will be an important driver of our plans to unlock capital invested in our commercial portfolio,” stated Pirojsha Godrej, managing director and chief operating officer, as per a report in The Times of India (TOI) dated October 1, 2015.
Reporting on two of the biggest recent property deals, the newspaper reported that at Rs 1,479 crores this was one is the biggest transaction for any single end-user commercial real estate sale in India. Godrej Properties partnered with Jet Airways in a 50:50 joint venture for developing the office building, TOI revealed, as the airline had acquired the 2.5 acre plot in 2006. On October 2, 2015, TOI had reported that Bombay based Carnival Group "may have struck the country’s biggest ever real estate deal when it bought over Larsen and Toubro’s Elante Mall in Chandigarh for Rs 1,785 crores.”

A view of the property in Bandra Kurla complex

Godrej Properties is currently developing residential, commercial and township projects spread over 10.25 million sq m in 12 cities, according to The Mint which also wrote on the transaction. In the last few years, BKC has emerged as one of the prime commercial hubs, with the average price ranging between Rs 20,000 and Rs 34,000 per sq ft.
Abbott, which had reported a 35% year-on-year rise in its standalone net profit to Rs 68.56 crores for the quarter ended June 30, 2015, proposes to occupy the space in 2016 and will "house more than 1,500 employees” (of their total India strength of 2,600) in their new office.