• quotation mark They have been built much quicker than they would have been, had we been financing it ourselves. I like the fact that the risk of filling those rooms is now carried by our partner. quotation mark

    Paul Large - Finance Director, Oxford Brookes University

Funding Structures

Since 1997, UPP has committed more than £1 billion of private finance to the university student accommodation sector. In 2008, a further £70 million of senior debt was raised by UPP to fund two major refinancing packages at Oxford Brookes and Reading universities. Both universities have signed deals to extend the leases on rooms built and managed by UPP until 2050 and have renewed facilities management contracts.

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Funding

Universities have many demands on their time and budgets, of which property is only one element. Our funding model has been developed over decades of experience in the higher education sector and frees universities, many of which continue to face a significant funding gap, to invest in academic and social facilities instead of student housing. UPP is owned and actively supported by funds managed by Barclays Private Equity, part of Barclays Capital PLC. The investment capital comes from a range of institutional investors as well as from Barclays Capital.

The university property market has remained a consistently high performer for many years, making UPP an attractive investment opportunity, and has enabled us to provide funding to our university partners of almost £1 billion. In the past we have attracted funding from a range of investors including: Abbey, Barclays Bank PLC, Bank of Ireland, HBOS, RBS, DExia, Bayerische Landers Bank and Nationwide. Our future ambitions are considerable and achievable: we aim to double in size and invest an additional £1 billion in the next four years, underlining our commitment to the sector and our partners.