Ascendas India acquires Vanenburg IT Park in Hyderabad

Hyderabad: Ascendas Pte, provider of business space solutions with key markets in Singapore, China, India, Korea and the Philippines is acquiring Vanenburg IT Park from Dutch technology group Vanenburg. This is the company's second project in Andhra Pradesh, following the development of Phase-I of Cyber Pearl located in HITEC City, Hyderabad.

The four-year old Vanenburg IT Park, spread across 20 acres, is considered among the best IT parks in India. Currently, the tenants of the Vanenburg Park with gross floor area of 850,000 sq ft have about 7,000 employees working in a number of IT and IteS companies like Cognizant Technology Solutions, Computer Associates, SSA Global, Motorola and the leading market-research company, TNS. The master plan of the Park also allows for a fourth building which is in the process of development.

Jan Baan, chairman of Vanenburg Group said, "This deal would enable us to focus on our core business of building and selling enterprise software products".

S Ramanathan, managing director, Vanenburg IT Park, said that the IT Park had grown to be one of the finest IT Parks in India, a statement acknowledged by Goh Kok Huat, chief operating officer of Ascendas Pte and concurrently the CEO of Ascendas India. He said his company would tap the existing management team's strengths, coupled with best practices Ascendas has gleaned from its experience in Asia, to add even more value to the sterling list of customers that Vanenburg has attracted to the park.

"Vanenburg Park fits well with our overall strategy to grow a strong presence in Hyderabad, having just completed Phase 1 of Cyber Pearl in India," says Chong Siak Ching, president and CEO of Ascendas Pte. He adds, "Our flagship in India, the International Tech Park at Bangalore in Karnataka, is already recognised as the benchmark for top quality IT parks in India. In Tamil Nadu we aim to further raise the bar with our IT Park project in Chennai the first phase of which is scheduled for completion in May next year."

Ascendas has appointed Pang Yee Ean, 35, as the new head of Hyderabad operations. The company has its regional headquarters in Chennai, where it is developing the new International Tech Park located within the IT Corridor.

Ascendas is also developing Cyber Pearl in Hyderabad, which completed its first phase recently. The company is looking for opportunities to expand in its current markets in south India as well as new markets in the north.

Established in 2000 and headquartered in Chennai, Ascendas (India) develops IT Parks and hi-tech buildings, as well as built-to-suit and ready-built facilities. The widely acclaimed International Tech Park Bangalore, developed in partnership with the renowned Tata Group, is India's first "work-live-play" environment, and has been lauded as an icon for IT Parks in India.