PGIM Real Estate has bought a portfolio of purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) assets from Unite Students for £184m.
The six schemes, which offer 2,948 beds in total, are: Jennens Court (pictured), Birmingham (596 beds); North Court, Cardiff (253); The Grange, Leicester (219); Prospect Point, Liverpool (635); St Peter’s Court, Nottingham (808); and Exchange Works, Sheffield (437).
Generation Partners will act as the asset and development manager of the portfolio and its operational management arm, Now Student Living, will be retained as the property manager.
PGIM Real Estate intends to conduct a rolling refurbishment of the portfolio to modernise the assets.
Tobias Waldschmidt, senior portfolio manager of European core plus strategy at PGIM Real Estate, said: “In the current market environment, it’s rare to find a stabilized portfolio with high-quality yielding assets located in key regional cities. We believe the UK PBSA sector has strong underlying fundamentals as demand for student housing is only set to increase with more students applying for university. We are confident that, together with Generation Partners, we can add value to this portfolio on behalf of our investors, whilst delivering a secure stable income stream from day one.”
Alan Artus, chief executive of Generation Partners, added: “Generation is excited to be working in partnership with PGIM Real Estate on this portfolio in conjunction with our recently established operational management arm, Now Student Living. The opportunity to upgrade these assets to provide high quality PBSA whilst still appealing to a broad student demographic is an exciting challenge and we look forward to working with PGIM to deliver our joint objectives.”
Paul Watson, co-founder and managing firector of Now Student Living, said: “Now Student Living are enthused to be working with PGIM on this exciting new venture. This portfolio represents a selection of well located, well provisioned PBSA residences that are ideally suited to serve a broad range of domestic and international students looking for affordable, well managed accommodation throughout their time studying in leading University cities.
“Now Student Living was formed in 2023 from a desire to deliver a better service both for students and for our strategic investment partners, and this portfolio takes our beds under management to circa 10,000 across the UK and Ireland allowing us to further build on our approach which has already led to our achieving Gold Investor In Student accreditation.”
Scott Blakeway, head of consultancy services at Fjeld Consulting, which was appointed by Now Student Living to project manage the handover of the portfolio, said: “We are proud that Fjeld Consulting have played a pivotal role in supporting the rapid growth journey of the Now Student Living PBSA platform. In under 12 months, we’ve worked closely with the team to support their expansion from inception to a remarkable portfolio of 22 properties, and most recently the acquisition of six properties from Unite Students.”
Joe Lister, chief executive of Unite Students, said: “These disposals continue our disciplined approach of recycling capital for reinvestment and further increases our alignment to the strongest universities. The growth outlook for purpose-built student accommodation remains compelling and we are tracking a number of new investment opportunities at attractive returns.”
