Year: 2010

Production at UNITE Modular Solutions in Stonehouse will cease for nine weeks from Monday, February 22, to allow bosses to concentrate on the future of the company.

More than 100 affected staff will be kept on full pay during the shutdown until Monday, April 19 – a significant extension to the firm’s typical annual two-week break between major projects in the summer months.

A spokesman for UNITE said the shutdown period was necessary for the commercial and business management team to focus on securing new contracts and projects for the remainder of 2010 and beyond. It was also made clear that redundancies are not being considered at this time …

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PILinvests has launched the Crosslane Student Accommodation fund for investors looking to invest in a portfolio of purpose-built private sector student accommodation in university cities across the UK. 

The properties will be managed and let by the Crosslane team, who have an existing portfolio of similar assets.

Investors subscribing for the first £12m of equity will be issued with participations equivalent to 107 per cent of equity invested …

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Barclays is considering a deal to spin off its private equity arm to management in an arrangement worth £100m that will underline the bank’s determination to focus on its retail banking and capital markets operations. Last year the bank sold its fund management arm, BGI, to US group Blackrock in a deal that boosted its capital cushion at a time when regulators were demanding that banks hold more in reserves.

A sale of Barclays Private Equity (BPE) to managers headed by Paul Goodson and Rob Myers would have the advantage of jettisoning a division of the bank that could come under the spotlight if the UK adopts proposed US rules to curb the activities of international banking groups. The US president Barack Obama suggested last month that US banks be banned from involvement in hedge funds, private equity and derivatives trading.

City sources say an MBO of Barclays’ private equity business has been under active consideration since the end of last year, but an announcement has been delayed because of the complexity of a deal. Barclays is understood to want to retain a small stake in the operation and there have been arguments about valuation and branding. Analysts say BPE generated fees last year of about £400m …

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University Partnerships Programme (UPP), a provider of campus infrastructure, student accommodation and asset management has been ranked fifth in the 2010 Sunday Times Deloitte Buyout Track 100 league table. The list, published in The Sunday Times, compares the profit growth of Britain’s 100 private-equity backed companies.

UPP have attributed their profit growth to acquisitions, improved efficiency in procurement practices and the construction of 3000 student rooms in 2009 …

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Cumbria Universty has put plans for a Caldew Riverside campus in Carlisle on hold due to the North West Development Agency refusing to pay decontamination costs.

Edinburgh-based RMJM architects, Arup in Sheffield, on M&E, and the Manchester office of Buro Happold, on engineering duties, were all appointed just two months ago to deliver the scheme, but plans to redevelop the Caldew Riverside site have been put on hold for at least ten years, possibly even scrapped.

A spokesman from the university said: “Carlisle City Council owns the land the campus was planned to be built on. They gave Tesco first option, but those discussions ended and the university was the intended end user but it never formally happened and due to the economic climate the situation has changed. So there is currently no end user.” …

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A multi-million pound student village will still be built in Carlisle despite the University of Cumbria putting expansion plans on hold.

Those behind the Denton Holme development insist they have not been put off by last week’s announcement – though the village may now be built in smaller phases.

The plans – to turn a derelict industrial estate into 196 student bedrooms and 40 craft workshops for graduates to set up business – were approved by councillors in December …

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The death knell has sounded for another Cambridge pub.

The Fleur in Humberstone Road is to be demolished to make way for student flats.

The pub reopened as an upmarket bar and bistro in 2007 but its owners, property developers Chard Robinson, say it has struggled to make money …

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The quality of university degree courses will “seriously deteriorate” unless annual tuition fees are raised to at least £5,000, a study by a right-of-centre thinktank warns today.

Policy Exchange said last week’s announcement of £449m in government cuts to higher education – equivalent to a reduction of more than 5% – made increasing fees, which are currently capped at £3,225 a year, all the more urgent.

The study also warns that the high cost of providing loans to all eligible students means the government’s £25bn student loan debt could soar to £55bn in eight years’ time if fees only rise in line with inflation …

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Residents are fighting back against a proposed major development which they claim will have a devastating effect on surrounding heathland in Poole.

The application, which was first mooted around a decade ago, could see 450 student units and 378 new homes built on land south of Wallisdown Road which is currently fields and farm land.

The site, owned by the Talbot Village Trust, falls within the Natural England 400-metre protection zone designed to protect heathland against the effects of urbanization …

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Student accommodation is a niche investment area that private investors have been eagerly studying. Backed up by statistics that any professor of economics would be proud of, the market seems to be immune from pressures faced by the wider property market. But how much longer can this out performance continue?

The recession has boosted university applications, with admissions service UCAS reporting a 12 per cent rise in applications for the 2010-2011 academic year. Since 1996, student numbers have maintained an annual growth rate of 2.5 per cent (see graphs below). With universities unable to provide sufficient accommodation, values and rents in the rapidly growing private sector are rising.

Research from Knight Frank shows that rental growth is rising at the rate of 5 per cent per annum for operators of private halls, and restricted supply is one reason for this sustained increase. “Only 26 per cent of London’s higher education students are able to access halls, and only 3 per cent have access to private-sector halls,” notes Knight Frank partner Tim Goddard. “This is a substantially lower proportion than other major cities.” …

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