US-based real estate investment firm Hines plans to increase its presence in southern India by entering the Chennai and Hyderabad real estate sectors in an effort to double its portfolio over the next two-three years, said its country head for India, Amit Diwan.
Currently, Bengaluru is the largest market for Hines India, with two offices and one residential project totalling more than 4.2 million square feet.
“We are expecting southern India to be our single largest chunk of investment in India and maybe we will do multiple deals a year,” said Diwan.
The company plans to invest a minimum $50 million for each major investment across markets. It will explore new office projects through development management and forward purchase agreements, apart from looking at greenfield acquisitions in prime locations including Mumbai and Gurgaon.
“We have a pipeline across all these markets,” said Diwan.
Currently, the company has projects spread over 12.5 million sq ft in its portfolio in India.
“We have not deployed capital in India in the last three years. We were using the time to build out an operating experience. We decided consciously to build execution capabilities before deploying capital,” said Diwan.
At present, Hines India has seven offices and three residential projects under various stages of development across the National Capital Region (NCR), Mumbai, Bengaluru and Pune.
The investment momentum in Indian real estate by both domestic and institutional players such as Blackstone Group, Brookfield Asset Management, GIC, Xander, Ascendas and CPPIB is expected to rise continuously, with the commercial office segment taking the larger share.
“The ongoing hiring by India Inc and the resultant expansion plans is spurring demand for office space. While most companies continue to adopt hybrid style of working, they continue to lease large office spaces. This is especially true for technology companies who have a large appetite for quality offices.,” said Ramesh Nair, CEO-India at Colliers.