Indian law firms Khaitan & Co and Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas & Co have advised Brookfield India Real Estate Trust (BIRET) on its acquisition of a 50 percent stake in Rostrum Realty from Bharti Enterprises for 60 billion rupees ($719 million).

Bharti was represented by Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas.

Rostrum’s portfolio includes Worldmark assets at Aerocity New Delhi, Airtel Center in North Gurugram, and Worldmark Gurugram.

Following the deal, Bharti will become the second largest unitholder in BIRET, India’s only 100 percent institutionally managed office real estate investment trust (REIT), with an ownership stake of 8.53 percent.

A boom in companies setting up offices in India, coupled with post-pandemic return-to-office requirements and strong retail consumption, have boosted optimism for commercial properties, Reuters reported.

With a total leasable area of 25.5 million square feet, BIRET is India's fourth-largest listed REIT by market capitalisation, after Embassy Office Parks Nexus Select Trust and Mindspace Business Parks REIT.

The Khaitan transaction team was led by partners Aakash Choubey, Deepak Jodhani, and Gautam Suseel, and included principal associate Sushmita Ravi, senior associates Divyansh Joshi and Saranya Mishra, and associates Anadi Saxena, Shilpa Shankar.

Real estate partners Avnish Sharma and Kshitij Bishnoi, disputes partners Divya Chaturvedi and Sneha Janakiraman, and competition partner Anisha Chand also assisted on the deal.

CAM’s transaction team was led by M&A head Akila Agarwal and included partner Mukul Sharma, principal associates Rudraksh Durrani and Shreya Teewari, and associates Aparajita Marwah and Devarshi Mohan.

The CAM team also included partners L Viswanathan (finance), Kranti Mohan (REITs), SR Patnaik (tax), Vijay Chauhan (competition) and Ashish Jain (real estate).