This is Investec's largest purpose-built student accommodation loan to date.
Investec Structured Property Finance will provide CA Ventures with a £64m senior loan to fund the development of 888 purpose-built student accommodation beds.
CA Ventures is a North American investor, developer and operator of student housing assets.
The student accommodation will be in the university cities of Glasgow, Edinburgh and Sheffield.
Shivani Goolab, at Investec Structured Property Finance, said: “We are very excited to be working alongside a leading student living provider with an enviable track record in the USA, as it looks to break into the UK market.
“We believe that our experience funding a range of market-leading developers across 41 schemes positions us to play a valuable role in supporting CA Ventures’ overseas expansion strategy.
“Despite its relative maturity versus other alternative use classes, we continue to view the sector very favourably.
“There remain significant pockets of the UK where there is a chronic undersupply of student beds, a trend we expect to continue being supported by favourable economic factors including a weak pound and low interest rates.
“At the same time, the long-term, visible income streams and covenant strength offered is extremely appealing to institutional investors.”
Carlo Matta at CA Ventures added:“It has been a pleasure working with the team at Investec, a lender that has demonstrated an intimate knowledge of the UK’s PBSA landscape.
“This is the start of what we hope will be a long and fruitful relationship, as we look to leverage our near 15-year track record of developing and operating high quality student accommodation portfolios in the USA in establishing our footprint in the UK; a market which is home to a high number of world-leading universities.”
The transaction is Investec’s largest purpose-built student accommodation loan to date, a sector in which it has provided more than £650m of finance, across over 16,000 beds in 41 schemes.
The three developments are due to practically complete for the start of the 2020/2021 academic year.
