In one of India’s biggest commercial property acquisitions, market regulator SEBI has struck a deal to buy IDBI Bank’s seven-storey office building at the Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC), Mumbai’s prime business hub.

The deal, valued at around ₹1,000 crore, was recently approved by the board of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEB), two sources told BusinessLine .

The SEBI-IDBI deal is being billed as India’s second-largest end-user office-space transaction by value after Abbott India’s ₹1,480-crore purchase of 4.35 lakh sq ft space at BKC, in September 2015.

The going rate for the current deal comes to around ₹30,000 per sq ft, the sources said.

The IDBI building, which has 3.41 lakh square foot of built-up area, is located in the same ‘G’ block area of BKC where SEBI currently has its offices. The block is exclusively reserved for banking and financial services companies and also houses India’s largest bourse, the National Stock Exchange. The deal will make SEBI one of the largest owners of office real-estate at BKC.

The deal will help SEBI more than double its office space; the regulator may also see a scale-up in its employee strength in the coming years, the sources said.

SEBI’s income comes from stock- and commodity market-related transaction fees. It also collects fines by punishing wrongdoers in the market. Over the years, SEBI has purchased office-space in most metro cities and has also built over 125 apartments and guest houses for its staff. Recently, the regulator was asked to transfer ₹1,672 crore of surplus funds lying with it to government coffers.

Emails sent to SEBI and IDBI Bank remained unanswered.

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