Tristan Capital Partners’ CCP 5 Fund along with its joint venture partner, Bricks Group, has acquired a 999-bed purpose-built student accommodation asset in the city of Liverpool from Aura Investors LLP for €126m (£110m). Liverpool is one of the UK’s leading university centres with more than 70,000 students and five Higher Education Institutes including the prestigious Russell Group, University of Liverpool. The latest UCAS application data highlights continued growth in the number of domestic students and high-value international students with the UK’s total full-time student population growing by 8% with a further 5% increase predicted in 2021/22.
This latest acquisition expands the joint venture’s PBSA platform to over 2,100 beds located in Birmingham, Manchester/Salford, Glasgow, and now Liverpool – all managed by Bricks’-owned award-winning platform, true student.
Kristian Smyth, Managing Director at Tristan Capital Partners, said: “The underlying quality of the asset coupled with the growing demand from both domestic and international students in Liverpool made this a compelling addition to our UK PBSA strategy. We are focused on investing in both operating assets and de-risked developments across the UK with an objective to create a €858m (£750m+) platform in the short to medium term.”
Peter Prickett, Founder and CEO of Bricks Group, said: “It’s testament to the strength of the partnership that we’ve quickly secured our largest PBSA asset in the internationally renowned city of Liverpool. And this is just the beginning for our JV and its mission to scale the true student brand at pace.”
Merelina Sykes, Joint Head of Student Property at Knight Frank, added: “We are delighted to support Tristan Capital Partners and Bricks Group’s ’s continued investment into best-in-class PBSA assets across core markets in the UK. The PBSA market continues to see high volumes of investment as the demand and supply imbalance and the defensive nature of the sector, continue to stand against wider headwinds facing the property industry.”
