Nexus REIT schedules to float a 4,000-crore IPO in May

Global private equity significant Blackstone Group-sponsored Nexus Select Trust REIT, India's maiden real estate expenditures trust (REIT) with selling properties, will be launching its initial public offering to raise over Rs 4,000 crore in the first week of May, said people with direct knowledge of the development.

This will be Blackstone's third REIT in the country, including both of the earlier trusts that housed office properties. Embassy REIT, backed by an institutional investor, was India's first REIT and made its public market debut in 2019, while Mindspace REIT listed in 2021. "The DRHP (draft red-herring prospectus) for the Nexus REIT was filed in mid-November, and the process is underway to file the offer document by mid-April in the next few days the total asset value of the portfolio is estimated to be over $3 billion," said one of the persons mentioned above.

Nexus Select Trust has a portfolio of 17 operational shopping malls across 14 major cities in India, covering 10 million sq ft of retail space. These properties are in cities including Delhi, Bengaluru, Navi Mumbai, Chandigarh, Chennai and Hyderabad that collectively represent 30% of the country's discretionary retail spending and have seen strong population growth.

The retail portfolio, with over 3,000 stores, has a total occupancy rate of 95% and witnesses an annual footfall of over 130 million shoppers, according to the DRHP. The proposed REIT portfolio will also include the global institutional investors' recent acquisition of Prestige Group's commercial assets, including malls in Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad.