UNITE raising £150m
Article Date: Dec 01 2009Student housing specialist UNITE Group’s UNITE UK Student Accommodation Fund is close to raising £150 million.
The fully-listed company, Britain’s leading developer and manager of student accommodation, says the fund, which it set up three years ago and manages, has received binding subscriptions from institutions for £133 million and applications for another £23 million. This money will increase the fund’s further investment capacity to some £325 million, of which it plans to spend £100 million buying a portfolio of assets from UNITE Group.
UNITE Group itself owns 18.6 per cent of the fund and having recently raised £82 million in a placing at 250p, says it will put up to £18.6 million into the fund’s equity issue to maintain its holding. At the end of September, the fund had a portfolio valued at £877 million, which the planned purchase will take to nearly £1 billion, and borrowings of £481 million.
UNITE Group’s shares surged from 38.5p to 300p during the past 12 months and now stand at 286.5p. That values the company at £457 million.
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