Tata Realty sells 2 shopping malls in Amritsar, Nagpur for Rs 700cr

Tata Realty has sold two shopping malls in Amritsar and Nagpur to Singapore-based Virtuous Retail South Asia for Rs 700 crore. Virtuous Retail South Asia Pte Ltd (VRSA) is the retail arm of private equity firm Xander.

The shopping mall at Amritsar, Punjab, has a leasable area of one million sq ft while the mall in Nagpur, Maharashtra, has 7,00,000 sq ft area.

VRSA said in a statement that it has acquired "Trilium retail shopping center portfolio from Tata Realty for Rs 700 crore (USD 100 million)."

The company has added two more operational centres to its existing, operational 5.4 million sq ft retail portfolio.

"With these new acquisitions and the recently announced 20-acre land acquisition in Mumbai, VRSA's operational and under development India retail portfolio is now over 13 million sq ft across the four metropolitan cities of NCR Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Chennai and regional gateway cities of Surat, Chandigarh, Amritsar and Nagpur," the statement said.

The acquisition from Tata Realty is in line with the company's rapid pan-India expansion strategy being executed through both ground-up development and acquisition of existing, high-quality retail assets, it added.

VRSA will invest additional capital and resources in repositioning and rebranding the Trilium shopping malls as community-centric, flagship VR centers.

Sid Yog, founder and chairman of the Board, VRSA, said the company has expanded its footprint in Maharashtra and Punjab and add two strategic assets to retail portfolio in India.

"The acquisition of the Tata Realty retail portfolio provides an immediate opportunity to convert two existing, well-built assets in highly desirable locations, into people-centric VR flagship centers for two leading Indian cities with a very proud and rich heritage and history," he added.

Rohit George, Executive Managing Director, VRSA, said: "These acquisitions immediately add 1.7 million sq ft of existing retail space to our operational portfolio, taking it to about 7 million sq ft across 6 cities."

Combined with under-development VR Delhi and VR Mumbai (totalling around 5 million sq ft), and the soon to be opened VR Mantri Arena in west Bengaluru (1 million sq ft), VRSA said its portfolio span across nine locations across eight major cities.