The company’s India arm, Mirae Asset Investment Managers (India), has made this acquisition of a logistics facility in BGR Logistics Park with over 500,000 sq ft leasable area through a category II alternative investment fund (AIF), Mirae Asset Credit Opportunities Fund, for around Rs 175 crore.
“This acquisition is in line with our strategy to acquire core assets in tier-1 cities. We will continue to evaluate and invest in such grade-A assets across major warehousing hubs as we expand our presence in India,” Hakim Ronak, head-real estate investments, Mirae Asset Investment Managers (India), told ET.
This is Mirae Asset’s second such transaction in the last six months and with this, it now owns around 800,000 sq ft warehousing space with a total investment of over Rs 300 crore in Bhiwandi alone.
Prior to this, Mirae Asset had acquired another pre-leased and income-producing warehousing property spread over 10 acres in Bhiwandi with 300,000 sq ft leasable area.“This park provides a competitive edge in terms of its location. Given the paucity of similar institutional grade-A warehousing assets in the region, the demand for such products is relatively high” said Brijesh Khandelwal, partner, BGR Group.The new warehousing asset acquired now is a prime fulfilment centre of ecommerce major Amazon India and the entire logistics park spread over 70 acres also houses key tenants including DHL, Bestseller, Kunhe Nagel, Yusen Logistics and Parekh Logistics.Mirae Asset has multiple business entities across financial services in India, including a mutual fund business, fixed income, private equity and real estate. With Mirae Asset Credit Opportunities Fund, it plans to focus primarily on acquiring income-producing core logistics and industrial assets across the country.
Mirae Asset Global Investment’s arm had $214 billion of assets under management (AUM) as at June end. In India, it was managing over Rs 1.34 lakh crores of AUM as of July end under its mutual fund business. As of December 2022, Mirae Asset at a group level owns and manages around $10 billion worth of real estate properties around the world.
BGR Constructions has built, leased and is managing 4 million sq ft of warehousing space for multinational and domestic corporations at Sumeet Logistics Park, Shakambari Logistics Park and BGR Logistics Park situated in Bhiwandi.
The deal assumes significance as it indicates the investment potential of the asset class given the rise in logistics and warehousing activity across the country.
Bhiwandi, situated on the outskirts of Mumbai, is a prime and one of the largest warehousing locations in India. In the last five years, it has become a hub for companies such as Amazon, Samsung, BMW, Flipkart and recently Maersk.
The demand for warehousing space has stood out in the last few quarters, led by penetration of ecommerce and growth of third-party logistics amid the pandemic.
The warehousing segment has been attracting interest from institutional investors, with more than $5 billion funds committed by private equity firms and pension funds such as CPPIB, Warburg Pincus and Ivanhoe Cambridge over the past five years.
A favourable regulatory environment in the backdrop of the government’s support through policy and reforms is expected to boost infrastructure spending further and, in turn, the demand for modern warehousing.
