Blackstone deal: why student housing is attracting record investment
S-based private equity group Blackstone has agreed to buy IQ Student Accommodation, which is owned by Goldman Sachs, for £4.7bn in one of the UK’s largest ever private property transactions.
The deal for IQ, which is also partially owned by the Wellcome Trust, represents a bet on the UK’s rapidly growing student housing market, after Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government announced last year its aim to grow the number of international students in the country by a third.
IQ is one of the UK’s largest owners of student housing, with 67 student premises housing more than 28,000 beds in 27 major university cities, including London (where over half the portfolio is concentrated), Edinburgh, Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham and Dundee …