Goldman Sachs breaks ground for new campus in Bangalore

Bangalore: Investment bank Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said on Wednesday that it has broken ground on its brand new campus in Bangalore, which can accommodate 9,000 people, making this its second largest office after its headquarters in New York. The firm said that it will invest $200 million (Rs.1,200 crore) to build the campus, which is expected to be complete by 2018. The announcement of the new campus comes nearly two years after Reuters in October 2012 reported that Toronto-based architects Adamson Associates said the project faces a string of obstacles including shoddy construction, corruption, poor sanitation and an on-site tomb. “India’s industry standards of construction quality for commercial office space have not yet reached international standards, much less Goldman Sachs standards,” the news agency report said. The 22-acre site is located in the Outer Ring Road area, which has a number of multinational corporations along the stretch. It will have around 1.6 million sq. feet of space that will be constructed in a built-to-suit model for Goldman Sachs by its developer partner Kalyani Developers. “These two years have been spent in doing the detailed design of the campus that has taken up time,” said V. Bunty Bohra, chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs Services in India. The investment bank has appointed Pei Cobb Freed and Partners Architects Llp to design the campus. Adamson was appointed as production architect. With the new campus, Goldman Sachs would probably bring together its 5,400 employees, who work out of the Embassy Golf Links business park, to the new address. The Bangalore office was opened in 2004 to provide support and service functions for Goldman Sachs around the world. It is an integral part of the firm’s global activities, with people working across businesses, including finance, investment banking, securities and technology. Over the past five years, the headcount in the Bangalore office has grown at approximately 19% compound annual growth rate. Compared with Bangalore, Mumbai, its only other office in India, has around 150-200 people. The new campus will allow the company to grow faster, said Jeffrey W. Schroeder, chief administrative officer, Goldman Sachs. “A number of corporates are consolidating and growing their businesses in India, which is a postivie sign. Demand for good quality office space is high and more and more companies are committed to take up new office space, lest they miss the bus before prices go up,” said Juggy Marwaha, managing director, south India, at property advisory Jones Lang LaSalle India