How to win investment from Better Society Capital

So far, the organisation has made outlays totaling almost £1 bn (€1.18 bn) to an array of social property ventures and lending funds. Of that, £233 mln has ended up as commitments to property fund managers.

With more capital flowing to the investor – and now under a Labour Government pushing housing up the agenda – we sat down with BSC’s Gemma Bourne who leads the social property strategy, to find out how it selects managers to work with, and whether the door is open to non-UK based investment firms. The answer to the latter is an emphatic ‘yes’.

Bourne explains how the investor started out in 2012 making investments with boutique managers and typically in closed-ended funds. However, more recently, the strategy is leaning towards larger fund managers and open-ended structures.

In April this year, it made a £10 mln commitment to Savills Investment Management’s open-ended Simply Affordable Homes Fund, which reached first close on £123 mln. Five founding investors also included London CIV, which manages the London Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS), Samsung Life Insurance, Schroder BSC Social Impact Trust plc, and Savills plc. The strategy is to provide affordable and social-rent homes as well as shared ownership.

A few months earlier, in December 2023, it committed £10 mln to Octopus Investment’s £62.5 mln open-ended Affordable Housing Fund. London CIV is also a co-investor.

Bourne, who joined the company in April 2019 from Lend Lease, said the move towards larger managers and open-ended vehicles coincided with a ‘shift in the market’ for more liquidity options. But it also gives greater opportunity for impact to happen ‘in perpetuity’ as there is ‘no cliff edge’ at the end of a fixed fund life. ‘That’s a good thing as it has the potential advantage of encouraging tenants to stay longer in the housing created by the fund managers it invests with,’ she said.

Subscribers can read the full interview in the latest magazine to learn the dos and don’ts when pitching to the investor and what may well work when trying to secure an investment.

A link to the PDF can be found below.