French reinsurance firm leases office space in Mumbai at Rs 40 lakh a month

SCOR SE has leased 7,955 sq ft (built-up area) for Rs 40.17 lakh a month in Mumbai’s most expensive commercial building, Maker Maxity in Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC)

SCOR SE, a French reinsurance company, has leased office space at a rent of Rs 40 lakh per month in Mumbai for five years.

The company has leased 7,955 sq ft (built-up area) for Rs 40.17 lakh a month in Mumbai’s most expensive commercial building, Maker Maxity in Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC), property documents accessed by Propstack showed.

The per sq ft rent works out to around Rs 505, making it the most expensive commercial real estate lease deal so far, real estate experts said, adding that this also indicates that there is still strength in A-grade commercial real estate, despite the slowdown.

Real-estate experts told Moneycontrol this deal is an outlier in terms of commercial rentals as the average rent for Grade A commercial space in top-end commercial buildings in the prime business district of BKC is in the range of Rs 260-320 per sq ft per month. The average rent in Maker Maxity is in the Rs 445-475 per sq ft per month range. This rent is higher than the Bank of China deal that was sealed at around Rs 500 per sq ft.

ALSO READ: Apple rents retail space in Mumbai for a minimum guaranteed payment of Rs 42 lakh per month

Vacancy across all five office buildings in Maker Maxity is at 2 percent and the revised quotes for these are at around Rs 550 per sq ft per month, they said.

The French firm has paid a security deposit of Rs 3.61 crore, the documents showed.

The lease start date was March 1, 2023, the lease and licence agreement showed. It was signed between representative of SCOR SE and Mystique Realty Private Limited.

The agreement comes with a rent escalation of approximately 10 percent per year.

Emails have been sent to SCOR SE and The Indian Film Combine Private Limited.

While this is a big deal, it is not the only one. Last month, Bank of China leased office space spread across an area of 9,300 sq ft at a rent of Rs 500 per sq ft per month at Maker Maxity for five years. The leave-and-licence agreement, accessed by Propstack, a real-estate data platform, showed that the deal was signed between Agni Commex LLP and Bank of China on March 9, 2023.

Tech titan Apple is all set to open its first retail store in India in Mumbai. For that, it has leased over 20,000 sq ft of retail space across three floors in a mall in BKC at a minimum guaranteed rent of around Rs 42 lakh per month, registration documents accessed by Propstack showed.

The minimum yearly rent is Rs 5.04 crore, to be paid quarterly. This works out to Rs 42 lakh per month. There is an in-built escalation clause of 15 percent every three years. The deal also includes a revenue-share component, where Apple has to pay 2 percent of revenues for 36 months, and 2.5 percent thereafter.

The agreement was registered on February 26, 2021. The store is located at the Jio World Drive Mall, which houses mostly luxury brands. It will be known as Apple BKC.

Office leasing in the country increased by 9 percent year-on-year, touching 12.6 million square feet (msf) between January and March 2023, according to real estate consultancy CBRE.

The report, titled 'CBRE India Office Figures Q1 2023', said that in the same period development completions touched 11.6 msf, a 31 percent on-year increase.

In contrast to the previous quarters, where technology companies dominated leasing activity, banking, financial services, and insurance firms and flexible space operators drove space take-up in the January-March quarter with a share of about 22 percent each. This was followed by technology companies (20 percent), engineering and manufacturing companies (11 percent) and research, consulting and analytics organisations (10 percent).