M&G Investments lends £125m to UK student housing firm Urbanest

M&G Investments has provided Urbanest with a £125m (€141.3m) loan to finance the UK student housing group’s development scheme in London.

M&G will fund the construction of Urbanest City, a 654 student beds scheme in Aldgate. The scheme will provide 60,000sqft of office accommodation. 

The building is scheduled for completion in 2021 and will be offered exclusively to students from King’s College London (KCL) through a long-term nominations agreement.

The £125m loan will mature in 2023 and will convert from a development to investment finance facility once construction is complete.

Vicky Skinner, the CFO at Urbanest, said: “This is Urbanest’s most ambitious student-led mixed-use development to date, providing a unique blend of student housing, heritage, entrepreneurial innovation, commerce and leisure space uses which will sit alongside and complement each other in the completed scheme.

“We are delighted to be working with M&G and KCL again and our aspiration with Urbanest City is to add another landmark location within our expanding PBSA portfolio.”

Adam Willis, an associate director in M&G’s Real Estate Finance team, said: “Urbanest continues to provide fantastic facilities for students in London and we are delighted to expand our relationship and enable the construction of this exciting development.

“We continue to see increasing demand for student accommodation in the capital and this deal provides our institutional investors with access to attractive returns secured against high quality real estate in London’s city centre.”