Blackstone sells 6% stake in Embassy Office Parks REIT, raises over Rs 2,020 crore

MUMBAI: Global private equity major Blackstone Group has trimmed its stake in real estate investment trust (REIT) Embassy Office Parks REIT through block deals in the open market on Wednesday.

The institutional investor has raised $275 million or over Rs 2,025 crore by selling around 6 per cent stake in the listed entity. The deals have resulted in reducing Blackstone’s holding in the REIT to 32 per cent from earlier 38 per cent.

Prior to this, Blackstone had $1.7 billion worth exposure in Embassy Office Parks REIT.

Blackstone has sold around 57 million shares of Embassy Office Parks REIT at Rs 355.2 per unit, while the scrip closed the session at Rs 355.84.

Institutional investors and funds including BNP Paribas Arbitrage, American Funds Global Balanced Fund, Stichting Depositary APG Tactical Real Estate Pool and Integrated Core Strategies (Asia) are among the key entities that have bought these REIT units in block trades.

ET has already reported that Blackstone is currently in advanced discussion to acquire visa processing firm VFS Global for over $1 billion.

Co-sponsored by the Blackstone Group and Embassy Group, Embassy Office Parks REIT is India’s first REIT that listed in April 2019.

This is the second time Blackstone has cut its exposure in the REIT through open market block deals. In June 2020, it had raised over $300 million by selling an 8.7 per cent stake in the listed entity. The proceeds of this transaction were utilised to return money to participants in Blackstone’s close-ended fund that had invested in the REIT.

Following the partial stake sale last year, Blackstone held a 46.3 per cent stake in Embassy Office Parks REIT.

In December, Blackstone and Embassy sold Embassy TechVillage, an integrated office park in Bangalore, to Embassy Office Parks REIT. Apart from this, a fundraising exercise by the REIT through a Qualified Institutional Placement (QIP) in December had lowered Blackstone's holding in the REIT to 38 per cent from over46 per cent.

Embassy REIT owns and operates a 42.4 million sq ft portfolio of eight infrastructure-like office parks and four city‑centre office buildings in India’s key office markets of Bangalore, Mumbai, Pune, and the National Capital Region.

Its portfolio comprises 32.3 million sq ft completed operating area and counts over 190 global companies as occupiers.

Blackstone is the largest office, retail and warehousing landlord in India and has deployed over $11 billion in the country’s commercial real estate so far. Blackstone’s overall asset under management is over $50 billion including real estate and private equity holdings.