Cognizant to sell Chennai headquarters for $95Mn
CHENNAI, INDIA — IT giant Cognizant is set to sell its long-standing Chennai headquarters. The property, located in Okkiyam Thoraipakkam on Chennai’s IT Corridor, has been Cognizant’s India headquarters for over 20 years.
Cognizant aims to complete the sale and vacate the premises by December 2024. The company plans to relocate its India headquarters to the MEPZ campus near Tambaram on GST Road.
Property details and sale expectations
The campus comprises a 15-acre land parcel and 400,000 square feet of office space. The Times of India reported that the sale could fetch Cognizant between ₹750 crore (US$89 million) and ₹800 crore (US$95 million).
International property advisory firm JLL has been mandated to handle the sale, with local developers such as Baashyaam Group and Casagrand reportedly in early discussions as potential buyers.
Historical significance of Cognizant’s Chennai HQ
The Thoraipakkam office served as the operational base for co-founders Lakshmi Narayanan and Chandrasekaran, and was the site where Cognizant remotely rang the Nasdaq opening bell. This property also marked Cognizant’s transition from rented spaces to its first fully owned property in Chennai.
The decision to sell the headquarters is part of Cognizant’s broader strategy to consolidate its operations. The company plans to streamline its presence in Chennai by focusing on three of its own buildings at MEPZ, Sholinganallur, and Siruseri.
Cognizant’s consolidation strategy
As part of this consolidation, Cognizant has been relinquishing leased spaces across Chennai, including offices at Ramanujan IT Park, DLF, and St Mary’s Road in R A Puram.
Cognizant, a Fortune 500 company recognized among the world’s most respected businesses, combines technologies like IoT, AI, and cloud to help clients stay ahead of workforce and market changes. It ranked #6 in the OA500 2024, an objective index of the world’s top 500 outsourcing companies.
Dual recruitment process
Recently, the company clarified its salary offerings for new hires in response to social media backlash. Cognizant confirmed that they provide competitive salaries ranging from ₹4 lakh to ₹12 lakh (US$4,700 to US$14,000) annually for fresh engineering graduates.
Surya Gummadi, EVP and President of Cognizant Americas, made this statement to address confusion over the widely discussed ₹2.52 lakh (US$3,000) annual salary, which applies only to non-engineering undergraduates.
The company operates two recruitment processes simultaneously: one for engineering graduates and another for non-engineering/information technology graduates.
