UK student accommodation provider University Partnerships Programme (UPP) has reached financial close on a £155 mln (€177 mln) deal with the University of Hull to operate 1,750 new and existing rooms on the campus.
The investment will include £127.6 mln of index-linked bond financing with a tenor of 40 years from Allianz Global Investors, and £27.4 mln of subordinated debt and equity provided by UPP Group, its shareholders and the University.
The deal brings UPP’s university partners to 15 and its portfolio under management or under construction to more than 32,000 student bedrooms.
The development will feature 1,462 new single rooms and one-bedroom apartments across nine blocks. UPP will also take over the operation of the existing 288 rooms at the university’s Taylor Court.
The transaction represents the third large-scale investment from Allianz Global Investors into the higher education sector to date and takes the investment made by Allianz Global Investors and UPP Group to more than £300 mln (€344 mln), following similar joint investments in on-campus student infrastructure at the University of Exeter and Nottingham Trent University.
'We continue to see strong demand from our clients to invest in infrastructure assets that as well as offering them the long-term, stable cash flows they need also support regional economic competitiveness,' said Adrian Jones, director of infrastructure debt at Allianz Global Investors.
The construction value of the project is more than £97 mln. Vinci has been appointed as UPP’s construction partner for the project, which gets under way in May 2017, with 478 new rooms available for the 2018 student intake and the remaining 984 available in September 2019.
