Thursday, June 16 2005 16:40 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Bangalore: Asia's leading business space provider, Ascendas Pte Ltd, today (Jun 16, 2005) announced the launch of the Rs 1,000 crore Ascendas India IT Parks Fund seeded by two of its prime IT park properties.

The private real estate fund, focused on matured income-producing assets with development potential, is expected to eventually grow to Rs 2,000 crore in size, Ascendas said in a statement.

As part of the Fund, Ascendas is injecting two choice assets - the international Tech Park, Bangalore (ITPB), which it lead-developed, and the Vanenburg IT Park (VITP), which was acquired recently and will soon undergo an identity rebranding.

The Fund is constituted in Singapore as a private trust. It is expected to be a part-development and part-yield play in India's information technology parks (IT Parks) sector -- business parks for the IT & ITES industry, which is a high-growth sector in India in view of the country's role as a major global outsourcing hub, the statement said.

The Fund has a term of seven years and is managed by Ascendas. Besides new development projects, Ascendas' other properties in India will be considered for the Fund once they are deemed ready, it said.

The Fund was privately placed to selected institutional investors around the world. As the sponsor of the Fund, Ascendas holds as 30 per cent interest. The remaining 70 per cent interest has been over-subscribed and taken up by international investors.

They include General Electric (GE) Commercial Finance Real Estate, a Rs 1,32,000 crore ($50 billion) global real estate investor and an integral part of General Electric Co.