Mapletree Sells Scotland Student Housing to Dutch Fund Manager

Singapore’s Mapletree Investments has sold two purpose-built student accommodation assets in Scotland to Dutch fund manager CVC DIF for an undisclosed price, as the Temasek-owned property group continues to reconfigure its UK student housing portfolio.

CVC DIF acquired the 356-bed Beaverbank Place in Edinburgh and the 400-bed Firhill Court in Glasgow for its Ottoway student housing platform, the Amsterdam-based firm said Wednesday in a release. The buys add to Ottoway’s existing portfolio of eight student housing assets in Britain and increase the platform’s total beds to more than 5,000 nationwide, it said.

A Mapletree spokesperson confirmed to Mingtiandi on Friday that the group had completed the sale of Beaverbank Place and Firhill Court, which were previously held by Mapletree Global Student Accommodation Private Trust, as the divestments aligned with MGSA’s overall objective of driving value and realising returns for the closed-end fund’s investors.

“Mapletree remains positive on the student housing sector,” the representative said.

The disposals come after Mapletree last October put up for sale a set of UK student housing properties totalling 4,844 beds, following the group’s $1.3 billion acquisition six months earlier of a 8,192-bed portfolio of 31 mostly British PBSA assets in Europe from its compatriots at Cuscaden Peak Investments.

Nine-Year Carry

Managed by operator Homes for Students, Beaverbank Place and Firhill Court formed part of a portfolio of 25 UK properties acquired by Mapletree from International Mutual Fund in 2016 for £417.5 million (then $522 million), marking the Singaporean group’s first-ever student housing investments.

A year later, Mapletree injected the portfolio into MGSA, a fund backed by $535 million in equity from investors including Great Eastern Life Assurance Company, DBS Bank and UBS. At the time, the $1.3 billion vehicle held more than 14,000 beds across 22 different cities in the US and the UK, with Mapletree Investments taking a 35 percent stake in the trust.

Mapletree, which bills itself as one of the largest owners of student housing in Britain with over 17,000 beds, has sought to sell some of those assets as a way to get cash back to investors at the highest rates possible amid increasing investment activity in the UK’s PBSA market.

“While the student housing sector continues to be a core sector for Mapletree, there is a need to explore the divestment of these assets in the fund to realise returns for our investors,” Matt Walker, CEO of student housing for Mapletree, told Mingtiandi in October. “Given heightened investment activities in the United Kingdom’s student housing market and an increasingly accommodative macro-economic environment, we have launched the sale process with a view to maximise returns for our fund investors.”

Still Bullish on UK Beds

Mapletree began the sale effort six months after acquiring its UK-dominated European portfolio from Cuscaden Peak, a joint venture that the Singapore player formed with Temasek stablemate CapitaLand, since-criminally charged tycoon Ong Beng Seng and his Hotel Properties Ltd in 2021 to take over the property assets of Singapore Press Holdings.

Through the deal last April, Mapletree expanded its student housing portfolio to over 33,000 beds across 47 cities in the UK, the US, Germany and Canada, representing total assets under management of S$6.2 billion (now $4.7 billion).

“Mapletree continues to remain positive on the student housing sector in the UK and will continue to grow our investment and development portfolios in the market,” Walker said in October.

Last June, MGSA sold a US student housing asset, a 894-bed property in North Carolina, to Timberline Real Estate Ventures for a reported $91 million. Mapletree’s UK portfolio also includes four PBSA assets under the Vita Student brand acquired in 2021.