Bouwinvest takes additional stake in Australian student housing

Bouwinvest has invested an additional €28m in upmarket student housing in Australia.

The investment by the €7.9bn property investor takes its stake to €80m in total.

With its new commitment, Bouwinvest – the property investor for BpfBouw, the €55bn pension fund for the building sector – has taken the second-largest stake in Scape Australia, which saw its joint venture’s capital increase to €353m.

Dick van Hal, chief executive at Bouwinvest, said the student housing was still under construction but that he expected returns of more than 10%.

He added that these returns would be similar to those of the company’s investments since 2012 in the retail and office sectors in Australia.

Scape Australia has nine development projects in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, where it has planned to build 5,000 studios.

Tjarko Edzes, Asia-Pacific manager at Bouwinvest, said Scape’s portfolio was well positioned in the “attractive market for student housing at top locations at walking distance from campuses”.

The €433bn Dutch asset manager APG recently committed €115m to Scape, which also has China’s ICBCI as a co-investor.

Bouwinvest took a €53m stake in student accommodation in Australia through Scape two years ago.