INFOSYS BUYS ESSAR’S IT PARK FOR RS 115 CRORE

Infosys Technologies has bought out Essar's technology park in Bangalore for approximately Rs 115 crore, said multiple sources briefed on the matter.

The 300,000-sqft Equinox Tech Park, developed by Essar's real estate arm Equinox Realty, is located a stone's throw away from the sprawling Infosys campus in Electronics City. Infosys' new facility would be able to accommodate a minimum of 3,000 employees. The deal concluded in the December quarter.

A source close to Infosys told that the company needed the office space for immediate rampup and since Electronics City was well connected and many Infoscions stayed in South Bangalore, the company thought it best to purchase the property.

An-email query sent to Infosys and Equinox Realty on the transaction met with no response. India's biggest real estate consultancy firm Jones Lang LaSalle India, who helped in structuring the deal, declined to offer comment.

Real estate analysts said that the buyout was a reflection of the growing appetite among domestic and international firms to expand their owned office space portfolio in the country's IT Capital.

Last year, technology park developer Bagmane Group cemented a build- to-suit office space deal with Volvo India for Rs 700 crore. RMZ Corp, another IT park developer, is in discussions to sell over 1 million sqft of space to Honeywell Technologies, a deal that is also valued at approximately Rs 700 crore.

Infosys along with peers Wipro and TCS are among the top five office space owners in the country. As of last year Infosys had a built up office space portfolio of 32 million sqft, and another 13 million sqft under construction.

Bangalore accounts for about 15% of the company's operational office space portfolio. Infosys owns close to 400 acres of land along Bangalore's IT corridor of Sajapur Road. "For some reason Infosys has shelved plans to develop in this region and is looking to buy out office spaces close to the existing facility in the city," said a source.

In the last fiscal, Infosys spent Rs 145 crore in acquiring 119 acres of land in Bangalore, Hubli, Mysore and Thiruvananthapuram. In the year before that, it spent Rs 158 crore to acquire 371 acres in Bangalore, Bhubaneswar, Mangalore, Nagpur, and Indore.