Student blocks bought in £41.6m deal

ACCOMMODATION for 502 students in Liverpool and Stoke-on-Trent has been bought by listed company Empiric Student Property in a deal worth a total of £41.6m.

London-based Empiric has bought the properties from Urban Sleep for £22.8m and has taken on the existing debt on them of £18.8m.

The debt facility is provided by Santander at a margin of 2.5% above LIBOR with a remaining term of about four years.

Urban Sleep will continue to operate the properties which are already 92% let on behalf of Empiric.

The Liverpool portfolio comprises six individual buildings, five of which are located in close proximity to each other on or around Myrtle Street.They are the Grade II-listed Art School Lofts, Maple House, Chatham Lodge, Hayward House, The Octagon and Grove Street Studios.

Myrtle Street is a prime central location forming the southern boundary of the University of Liverpool’s main campus and is less than a five minute walk from Liverpool John Moores University’s Mount Pleasant campus.
 
The Stoke property is Caledonia Mill – constructed in 2011 – and is a low-rise, multi-storey building which provides a total of 120 beds comprising 114 en-suite bedrooms (arranged mainly as three-bedroom apartments) and six studios.
 
Chief executive of Empiric Student Property Paul Hadaway said: “The acquisition of this portfolio from Urban Sleep represents an efficient deployment of equity capital in one transaction and provides Empiric with exposure to two new university cities with top 40 universities.
 
“The Liverpool and Stoke-on-Trent properties are very well located and the Liverpool portfolio also provides the group with six high quality properties close to each other in line with our ‘city clustering’ strategy. The acquisition is in line with Empiric’s investment criteria and returns profile.”