Kumar Mangalam Birla buys house in Mumbai for Rs425 cr

Kumar Mangalam Birla, chairman of the $41-billion Aditya Birla Group, has acquired a house in Mumbai for Rs425 crore in India's largest property deal. Birla outbid out-tbid rivals to emerge as the highest bidder for the sea-facing Jatia House on Malabar Hill, Mumbai's most exclusive address.

Birla pipped five bidders, including Piramal Realty headed by Ajay Piramal, for the 30,000 sq ft bungalow. Birla has already paid a 10-per cent of the amount as earnest money.

This will be the most expensive real estate transaction in the city, overtaking Sajjan Jindal's purchase of Maheshwari House in 2012 for Rs400 crore and Adi Godrej's bid for Mehrangir, the iconic bungalow of Homi Jehangir, father of India's atomic energy programme. Godrej paid Rs372 crore for the bungalow, which is close to Jatia House.

Bishopsgate, a five-storey residential building co-owned by Standard Chartered and the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) in the upscale Breach Candy area in the city, was sold for Rs272 crore to Peninsula Land, an Ashok Piramal Group company, in 2011.

Jatia House was owned by the MP Jatia Group which owns Pudumjee Pulp and Paper.

The Birla family, currently staying at Mangalyan at Altamount Road, will keep the new bungalow for personal use, officials said.

A number of industrialists who have been born and brought up in south Mumbai now want to have bigger spaces as their children grow up, analysts said.

The deal will be concluded in the next one month. None of the parties concerned were prepared to comment on the deal.

The Jatias had purchased the bungalow in 1972 from Meher Cawasji Vakeel. The bungalow had been on sale for quite some time.