Citicorp Services India renews lease of 160,000 sq ft office space in Mumbai

Citicorp Services India, part of Citigroup’s India franchise, has entered into an agreement to renew its lease of over 160,000 sq ft office space at Nirlon Knowledge Park in Mumbai’s Goregaon suburb.

The company has renewed the lease for the office space spread over six floors for a term of five years with a lock-in until September 2024. Citicorp Services will be paying a rental of nearly Rs 137 crore across the total tenure of the lease, excluding rental escalations.

Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, GIC, owns a majority stake in Nirlon that controls Nirlon Knowledge Park, a large-scale information technology office park. The commercial property comprises seven blocks and is spread across a total construction area of 3.3 million sq ft along the Western Express highway.

Citicorp Services India will be paying Rs 13.87 crore as a security deposit for the lease transaction, which will have a notice period of six months. As part of the deal, the company will get access to 160 car parking slots. The lease was executed and registered on August 5, 2017, showed the documents accessed through CRE Matrix, a real estate data analytics firm.

In June, Citigroup added 420,000 sq ft workspaces in Chennai and Pune under its Citi Solution Centers (CSCs) network. The incremental office spaces at the existing locations at DLF Cybercity in Chennai and EON IT Park in Pune have increased its capacity to service the global clientele of Citi.

The Chennai and Pune locations provide solutions for technology, operations, analytics, finance, risk and allied services for Citi’s institutional clients, as well as personal banking and wealth management businesses across the group. The banking group also has CSCs in Bengaluru, Gurgaon and Mumbai.

Citigroup declined to comment for the story, while ET’s email query to Nirlon remained unanswered until the time of going to press.

The commercial office segment, which was significantly impacted by the pandemic, has made a strong comeback in the last 3-4 quarters, supported by strong economic growth, increased hiring, and a return to the office trend, keeping the office sector buoyant.

The Indian office market grew substantially and delivered a strong performance in the first half of 2022. Office transactions recorded at 25.3 million sq ft, a 107% on-year growth, indicated the potential of the market on the back of a waning pandemic and the promise of a sustained economic recovery.

The IT and ITeS segments are among the prime drivers of overall leasing activity in the top cities and bulk hiring by these firms will influence demand for large quality office spaces.

New large-size leases are an indication that the market is seeing a steady recovery and confidence among occupiers with regard to the organisations’ real estate requirements is inching upward.