Singapore’s Mapletree Investments is selling 24 UK purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) properties. It comes as the Temasek Holdings-backed property firm recalibrates its $6.2bn PBSA portfolio.
The assets – totaling 4,844 beds – are estimated to be worth £450m ($583m). The divestment is a way to get cash back to investors at the highest rates possible amid increasing investment activity in the UK’s PBSA market.
Mapletree Investments’ assets are situated in London, Lincoln, Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester, Sheffield, Nottingham, Leicester and Aberystwyth. Many of the schemes are home to universities under the UK’s Russell Group umbrella of prestigious ‘red brick’ educational institutions.
“While the student housing sector continues to be a core sector for Mapletree, there is a need to explore the divestment of these assets in the fund to realise returns for our investors. Given heightened investment activities in the United Kingdom’s student housing market and an increasingly accommodative macro-economic environment, we have launched the sale process with a view to maximise returns for our fund investors.”
Matt Walker, CEO of student housing for Mapletree
Mapletree Investments is launching the sale six months after the company spent £1bn to acquire 31 PBSA assets totaling 8,192 beds across the UK and Germany.
The company’s sale effort comes as Singaporean investors have continued to target the UK’s PBSA sector, with rents having risen by an average of 8% for the 2023/24 academic year.
In addition to PBSA, Mapletree Investments manages a portfolio of data centre, industrial, logistics, mixed-use, office, residential, and retail assets across 13 markets in Asia Pacific, North America and Europe.
