Goldman Sachs Finalizes India's Biggest Office Space Deal

Bangalore: Goldman Sachs, the U.S banking group has decided to snap up 1.6 million square feet of office space on lease in Bangalore. This deal is recorded to be the biggest commercial property deal so far in India and whats more? The office space leased to them is as big as nine football fields, reports Ravi Teja SharmaRavi Teja Sharma of ET Bureau.

This deal would be a two-step transaction process. In the first transaction, Goldman Sachs will take one million square feet of office space. In the second transaction, the New York-headquartered investment bank will take the other 600,000 square feet of office space.

This office space is on the Sarjapur Outer Ring Road in Bangalore which will have three building blocks and the company is also planning to accommodate bulk of the staff, who are now working across six different offices in the city. The buildings will spread across 14acres of land and Bangalore-based Kalyani Developers have been chosen for the contract. This project is likely to be ready by the year 2017.

Currently, the bank employs 4000 people in the city who have been employed to perform back-office functions ranging from technology to finance and other operations.

This deal is confirmed by a spokesman for Goldman's Asian operations who stated that "This new lease is...to consolidate our presence and to accommodate future growth in the country." A senior executive at Kalyani (name confined) also confirmed this deal for office space.

This biggest transaction comes as veritable boon for commercial property business, as the commercial real estate market is standing on a soft ground since the absorption rate for office space in Indian metros is dropping drastically due to volatile economic conditions.

Office space deal of this size adds as a major boost-up by Goldman in India. According to commercial property market experts, one million square feet of office space can accommodate nearly 10,000 people. New York-based architect Pei Cobb Freed & Partners are engaged to design the buildings for the workspace.