LONDON – On Tuesday, Blackstone (NYSE: BX), a private equity giant, announced it had sold 3,000 shared-ownership homes to Britain’s biggest private pension fund, signaling growing dealmaking by big money managers in the UK housing sector.
Blackstone sold the portfolio to academia pension fund, the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS), which manages more than 75 billion pounds ($96 billion) of assets, in a deal worth 405 million pounds ($519 million).
The sale is one of the biggest in the UK housing sector this year and comes after Blackstone agreed to purchase 1,750 rental homes from housebuilder Vistry last month.
Shared ownership schemes enable people to buy part of a property if they cannot afford to buy outright, with the option of purchasing the rest in the future.
Major investors have been ramping up investments in British housing, betting on long-term returns in a market where demand far outstrips supply, at a time when the country’s new Labour government has committed to delivering more homes.
Blackstone (NYSE: BX) said the portfolio was sold by its Sage Homes vehicle – a housing joint venture with investor Regis that was launched in 2017.
It was unclear how Blackstone intended to use the proceeds from the sale, although it said the deal would allow it to continue to invest capital in Sage Homes.
“[We] have created an institutional grade portfolio which has, in turn, attracted more long-term institutional capital into the sector,” said James Seppala, head of real estate Europe at Blackstone.
($1 = 0.7811 pounds)
(Source: ReutersReuters)
