Blackstone to buy student housing group iQ from Goldman Sachs for £4.7bn
A giant American private equity investor is making a £4.7 billion bet on Britain’s student housing market in what will be the country’s largest private real estate deal on record.
Blackstone has agreed to buy the iQ student housing company from Goldman Sachs, the investment bank, and the Wellcome Trust, the biomedical research charity; iQ owns and operates 67 student housing blocks comprising more than 28,000 beds in 27 UK cities.
James Seppala, head of real estate Europe at Blackstone, said: “This acquisition ….