BENGALURU (Reuters) - Brookfield India Real Estate Trust (BIRET) has signed a binding agreement to acquire a 50% stake in four Bharti Enterprises properties for 60 billion rupees ($719 million), including debt, it said on Thursday.

The deal will take place through a preferential allotment of units in BIRET at 300 rupees per unit to Bharti Enterprises, which owns telecom operator Bharti Airtel, in exchange for the stake.

The properties, some of which are used for commercial purposes, while others host offices and retail stores both, are located in New Delhi and Gurugram and measure a total of 3.3 million square feet in area.

A boom in companies setting up offices in India, coupled with post-pandemic return-to-office requirements and strong retail consumption, have boosted optimism for commercial properties.

With 25.5 million square feet of total leasable area, BIRET is India's fourth-largest listed REIT by market capitalisation, after Embassy Office Parks, Nexus Select Trust and Mindspace Business Parks REIT.

($1 = 83.4420 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Hritam Mukherjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Sonia Cheema)