ICICI sells prime Mumbai property

Mumbai:

ICICI has sold a 13-storey residential building in central Mumbai as part of cost-cutting.

The sale price is not known but the deal is expected to be of high value considering that these are high-end residential apartments occupied by the banks brass.

The building had a couple of apartments on each floor while the entire top floor was occupied by the CEO. The sale,effected through multiple deals, is likely to run into several crores and would be reflected in the balance sheet of the company. According to property listings, a 1,200-square foot two-bedroom apartment in the same locality sells for around Rs 3.7 crore.

The erstwhile residents of the building included the whos who of former i-bankers such as ex-chairman KV Kamath,executive director and CFO NS Kannan, and other former I bankers like Ananda Mukherjee and Renuka Ramnath.

When contacted, a bank spokesperson said: “We continuously explore opportunities for cost rationalisation, productivity improvement and divestment of non-core assets. This includes rationalisation of immovable property. We do not comment on specific transactions or disclose sale proceeds or valuations other than what is/ will be disclosed in our financial statements. As far as our HR policies with respect to accommodation for employees are concerned,these have not changed. In any case,a very small proportion of our employees live in properties owned by us.”

According to sources, the bank had made an offer to some of the senior employees to buy the apartments and some of the employees have taken up the offer. Some of the apartments have been sold through block deals.

ICICI Bank has been liquidating real estate assets this year as a part of its effort to cut costs and unlock value. In September this year, had reported that India Cements had acquired ICICI Banks commercial space on the upmarket Santhome High Road in Chennai. It was a 9-floor (21,665 sq ft) prime property with a built up space of 83,772 sq ft.

Although ICL had struck the deal for Rs 63 crore, it later had shell out another Rs 7 crore to conclude the deal. Recently, the bank moved the operations in the building to Ambattur in North Chennai. Originally,it was built by Ashok Leyland Finance through AL property and it was later acquired by ICICI Bank. After making some modifications, ICL has made the building its headquarters in Chennai. Source: MagicBricks