MUMBAI | BANGALORE: In the largest single commercial property transaction, global insurance and asset management major the Allianz Group ’s joint venture entity with Shapoorji Pallonji Group has acquired nearly 2.5 million sq ft IT SEZ property Waverock in Hyderabad for around Rs 1,800 crore, said two persons with direct knowledge of the development. This is also the single largest institutional commercial transaction this year.Allianz-Shapoorji has inked the transaction to buy the property from current joint owners Singapore ’s sovereign wealth fund GIC and New York-based developer Tishman Speyer . The deal marks GIC’s maiden exit from any of its Indian properties. GIC had acquired 50% stake in Tishman Speyer’s WaveRock in 2015.“The deal has been concluded and the funds transfer has also been completed. The property earns annual rentals of Rs 140 crore to Rs 145 crore,” said one of the persons mentioned above.This is the second property acquired by Allianz-Shapoorji Pallonji joint platform in the country after picking up 1.8-milion-sq-ft SP Infocity for Rs 1,100 crore in 2018.Allianz Group, in its first-ever real estate related engagement in India, partnered with Shapoorji Pallonji Group to create an investment platform for office properties in late 2017. The platform, SPREF II is a Singapore-domiciled, rupee-denominated and closed-ended fund with total corpus of $500 million in equity. With the Waverock transaction, around 60% of the corpus of this platform is now deployed in the country.This platform is part of Allianz’s strategy to allocate around 5% of its global real estate portfolio to the Asia-Pacific region. Allianz Real Estate, the real estate investment and asset manager within the group, had entered into this platform on behalf of several Allianz companies.ET’s separate email queries to Shapoorji Pallonji Group, Tishman Speyer and GIC remained unanswered. Transaction advisor JLL India declined to comment for the story.Large global institutional investors, including Blackstone Group, Brookfield Asset Management, Singapore’s sovereign fund GIC, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), Goldman Sachs, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and Qatar Investment Authority have already been investing aggressively in Indian real estate assets, especially the commercial segment, over the past few years.Income-producing commercial assets have proved to be a major draw for most of the global institutional investors that are active in India or are keen to invest here. While these entities had earlier shown interest in investing in commercial real estate, they are ramping up their investment portfolios in the backdrop of opening up of an avenue for monetization through Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs).Against the backdrop of an ongoing policy overhaul, rising investor confidence, enhanced transparency, and sustained growth in demand for grade A commercial office space, experts believe the investment momentum will continue to rise.