Blacklight Capital Partners has secured a £33m senior debt facility from Allied Irish Bank (AIB) to refinance Limelight, its newly-developed PBSA asset in central Liverpool.
AIB’s three year facility replaces a development finance tranche provided by RoundShield as part of a broader debt and equity solution, utilised to part-fund construction of the asset after Blacklight acquired it as a distressed part-built site from administrators in July 2022.
“We are proud to receive AIB’s endorsement of Limelight as a high quality, institutional, income-producing product. We ran a competitive process for securing the new facility amongst some very high-quality lenders and we are delighted that AIB stepped up. The lending and treasury teams have been excellent to work with – straightforward and constructive – and we would not hesitate to recommend them to anyone seeking competitive debt finance.
“Limelight has come a long way from the site that we acquired two years ago, with much of our focus in that time being spent on ‘institutionalising’ what was essentially a derelict site. It is satisfying to see a dangerous eyesore on the city skyline thrive and become the top-ranking PBSA scheme in the city. The refinancing completes the third and penultimate stage in our original build, operate, stabilise, sell strategy, and we now look forward to Homes for Students continuing their excellent work in making Limelight the go-to student accommodation destination in Liverpool.
“It is not easy to generate genuine value-add as a developer in the current economic environment, and we are grateful to our partners in helping us to get Limelight over the line – its success is a tribute to them all.”
Matthew Hunt, Principal, Blacklight
The Limelight PBSA development – developed and owned by Blacklight Capital – includes 535 beds and is managed by Homes for Students. The scheme is located in Liverpool’s Knowledge Quarter and is near the city centre, the University of Liverpool and Liverpool John Moores campuses.
The recently completed scheme features a striking design with amenities including gated private gardens, a gym, cinema, sky lounge, games areas, laundry and communal study spaces, as well as a number of green initiatives.
“All developments naturally carry their own challenges, and these are only increasing with the positive changes coming through legislation aimed at improving the safety, sustainability and ultimately the overall quality of buildings for all stakeholders. Part-built developments carry a unique set of enhanced challenges, but to complete a refinancing with a lender of the calibre of AIB shows that these challenges have been met and overcome with the creation of an extremely high quality development underpinned with a robust set of contractual documents, collateral warranties and overarching structural warranty policy.”
Tom Mees, Head of Development, Backlight
Liverpool continues to be a target location for Blacklight, and indeed this is not the first turnaround it has achieved in the city, having rescued Aura, a 999-bedroom PBSA scheme, from administration in 2020.
Blacklight worked with its existing fractional investors to develop, debt finance, re-brand and operate the scheme as True Liverpool, while restructuring its ownership away from a fractional scheme into single ownership by a UK LLP – resulting in the completed development being sold to funds managed by Tristan in 2021 for £110m/c.5.2% NIY.
“We are delighted to be able to add Limelight to our portfolio of PBSA schemes across the country. It is very clearly a high-quality asset in a strong student city and is precisely the sort of project we are keen to support. We have been impressed by the quality of the product that Blacklight has created and look forward to working with them on this and future projects”.
Kieran Redford, Relationship Director, AIB
Blacklight and RoundShield are planning to bring forward an evolving pipeline of PBSA and Build to Rent developments across the country to add to the success of Limelight, their first transaction as funding partners.
“We look forward to replicating the value-add initiatives Blacklight has identified with Limelight in respect of exciting new pipeline opportunities, and continuing what has to date been a successful partnership”.
Spokesperson, RoundShield
