Mumbai firm buys Chandigarh mall for record Rs 1,785 crore

CHANDIGARH: Mumbai-based Carnival Group may have struck the country’s biggest ever single asset real estate deal when it bought over Larsen and Toubro’s Elante Mall for Rs 1,785 crore recently. The deal was announced on Wednesday in Mumbai.
The mall, which includes the Hyatt luxury hotel and office premises has over 1.5 million sq ft of retail space and is the largest in northern India excluding NCR. The retail space hosts major brands along with a mix of hypermarket, departmental stores, sports bar, bowling alley and an eight-screen multiplex.Spread over 20 acres, the mall is the only one in the region that has nearly full occupancy.
TOI had reported on Thursday that drugmaker Abbott India bought office space in Godrej BKC in the Bandra Kurla Complex in Mumbai for Rs 1,479 crore making it one of the biggest realty deals ever. The Elante handover trumps it by more than Rs 300 crore. Though the biggest ever real estate deal in India was reported last year when Unitech had sold its share in a string of IT parks for over Rs 2,000 crore. This included six properties spread across India.
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Associate director research and real estate intelligence JLL India, Rohan Sharma estimated that L&T could have been earning up to Rs 120 crore a year from rentals pouring in from the property. “It looks like the biggest deal for a single asset or property,” he added. There is, however, no word on when will the Carnival Group be taking over the property. The process of completing the deal and actual transfer can take months for a property of this size.
The deal has surprised many given the slump in the real estate market in Chandigarh, which has seen prices fall by as much as 40% in some areas. Many observers feel that this deal could bring prime properties in tier II and III cities in the region in focus.
News reports put the total investment made by L&T in the project at Rs 1,500 crore so far. It was the only mall in India that the construction major was operating itself. The firm is building similar property in Mumbai.