Japanese property group Daiwa House has entered the UK real estate market in a 75:25 joint venture with Lendlease to build a £250m (€286m) residential development in London.

Daiwa House and Lendlease will develop 259 new apartments across two new buildings at Elephant Park, just south of the River Thames.

The joint venture with Lendlease is the first time that Daiwa House has been involved in the development and sale of new homes in the UK.

Sydney-headquartered Lendlease will develop the project which is the final stage of residential development at Elephant Park.

Daiwa House, which is the largest home builder in Japan, will provide equity investment in the build-to-sell project.

This is Lendlease and Daiwa House’s third joint venture. The pair are building a 41-story mixed-use building in Manhattan and a build-to-rent apartment development in Melbourne.

Lendlease’s European CEO, Andrea Ruckstuhl, said: “We are very pleased to be able to bring Japanese investment here; it’s another illustration of the desire that international investors have for high-quality opportunities across our global pipeline of projects.”

Speaking at the onsite groundbreaking ceremony, Britain’s minister for investment, Dominic Johnson, said: “Real estate is hugely important for UK inward investment, supporting thousands of British jobs in our construction and property services industries as well as their huge supply chains.

“Having just visited Japan to meet with investors, I know how excited they are to invest in more UK projects because of the huge potential for growth that we offer.”

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