IQ Student Accommodation buys Regent Portfolio for £870m
Date: December 2017
Location: 11 buildings and 3,644 rooms across London, Edinburgh, York, Bath and Brighton.
Name: Pure Student Living – Regent Portfolio
No. of Keys: 3,644
Seller: LetterOne Treasury, based in Luxembourg, who was advised on the sale by JLL and Eversheds Sutherland. They only acquired this portfolio in 2015.
Buyer: iQ (owned by Goldman Sachs & Wellcome Trust), which is the largest provider and operator of student accommodation in Manchester, and following this acquisition will be the second largest provider of purpose built student accommodation in the UK with a portfolio book value of £3.2bn. This deal takes their portfolio to almost 28,000 rooms in 66 locations in the UK.
Other bidders for the portfolio were Urbanest, Greystar and a joint venture between Europa Capital and Generation Estates.
The transaction will also result in 80% of the value of iQ’s portfolio being located in Russell Group cities.
The sites will be fully integrated into the portfolio and rebranded as iQ in spring 2018. iQ was advised by Knight Frank and Jones Day.
THPT Comment: a quick in and our for LetterOne. They acquired ten of the eleven properties, in three transactions in 2015, for £680m and exit after two years at £870m (for 11 properties)
First Seen: Estates Gazette