Mansion to start building its own schemes
STUDENT properties specialist Mansion Group is to take on more design and build work during the next year as its own asset base strengthens.
The Cheadle-based company has just filed accounts for 2010 which show that sales in 2010 virtually doubled to £83.6m when compared with annualised sales of £42.9m for 2009. Pre-tax profits also rose to £4.3m (2009 annualised: £2.3m).
The company’s chief executive officer, Shankar Ramanathan, told TheBusinessDesk.com that since a new management team took over the business from founder Paul Wildes two years ago, its fortunes have been turned around.
Accounts for the Mansion Group show that it started 2010 with net liabilities of £2.2m but finished the year with net assets of £1.4m.
“Since we started on this journey two years ago we’ve delivered what we said we would and a bit more,” said Ramanathan.
To date, Mansion Group has bought larger buildings in areas with dense student populations and tailored an offer to first-year students that includes concierge services, activities and other community-based functions. As a result, rents are set at a premium but Ramanathan said that the offer is working.
He pointed to the current value of shares in the Mansion Student Accommodation Fund -a Guernsey-listed fund to which Mansion Group acts as property manager and investment advisor. It was launched on the Guernsey Stock Exchange with an initial price of £1 a share, but currently stands at £1.45.
“People vote with their feet when it comes to performance,” he said. “We’re looking after the properties and providing the level of pastoral care to students that is key to our offer and gives us the type of yield we’re trying to achieve for investors.”
In 2010, it bought and began refurbishments at seven schemes on behalf of the fund including Weston Court (pictured) and Beechwood House in Manchester, as well as schemes in Nottingham, London, Oxford and Leicester.
Ramanathan said that the company was looking for other opportunities – either through new distribution channels (such as offering property management services for other landlords) or through building its own schemes.
“We’re more advanced in our development now, and we’re in a stronger position to be able to do that,” he said.
“Design and build ties up capital for a lot of time, but there are opportunities which developers are coming to us about. We’re seen as one of the strongest acquirers in the student property market at the moment.”
