IKEA's malls business to build shopping centre in Gurugram outside Delhi

By Anna Ringstrom

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - IKEA's malls business, one of the world's biggest, said on Tuesday it had bought a plot in Gurugram next to New Delhi for a shopping centre that will be its first to open in India.

Ingka Centres, which has 47 malls, that itself calls "meeting places", anchored by IKEA stores across Europe, Russia and China and plans to enter North America and India, said the estimated investment for the project was around €400 million ($450 million) and that construction would start in early 2022.

Managing Director Cindy Andersen told Reuters the company expected to complete the centre, which will besides an IKEA store also house office space, in late 2025.

Ingka Centres in February announced it had bought a plot in Noida on the outskirts of Delhi and planned to invest nearly 55 billion rupees in its first shopping centre in India, but said on Tuesday the one in Gurugram would open before that.

The Noida store would hopefully open shortly after Gurugram, Andersen said in an interview.

Like furniture giant IKEA, Ingka Centres is scouting for locations across major cities across many markets. In India, Andersen said, Ingka Centres would however now focus on the two Delhi projects for the time being.

IKEA opened its first store in India in 2018, in Hyderabad.

Ingka Centres is owned by Ingka Group which also owns most IKEA stores worldwide.

($1 = 0.8898 euros)

(Reporting by Anna Ringstrom, Editing by Louise Heavens)