Our Approach

We are the UK’s leading provider of on-campus residential and academic accommodation infrastructure.

We have over 36,000 rooms in operation or under construction through long-term, bespoke partnerships with 15 world-leading universities.

With approximately 1,000 employees, since 1998 we have invested over £3bn in the UK higher education sector and provided homes to over 400,000 students.

Our unique, long-term partnership approach enables our university partners to develop their estates whilst reinvesting in their core services of teaching and research.

We design, build, finance and operate (DBFO) new, on-campus residential and academic infrastructure, and complete estate transfers of existing accommodation, for concession periods ranging from 40 years to 125 years.

By providing high-quality and affordable accommodation on campus we aim to deliver the very best student experience in partnership with universities.

Over 36,000 rooms in operation or under construction

Long-term bespoke partnerships with 15 world-leading universities

With approximately 1,000 employees

Over £3bn invested in the UK higher education sector since 1998

Provided a home for over 430,000 students since 1998

Average occupancy level across the portfolio

Our Vision, Strategic Aims and Priorities

Our Vision: Our vision is to be the leading provider of student accommodation services in the UK, working with the trust and confidence of our university partners.

Our Strategic Aims

To achieve our vision, we aim to:

1. Drive operational excellence throughout our Business
2. Delight our university partners with the service we provide
3. Generate value for our investors, enabling them to invest further in the growth of our Business

Our Strategic Priorities:

To achieve our strategic aims we will focus on six strategic priorities:

1. Student experience – Deliver excellent, easy to access student experience initiatives, seamlessly integrated with those of our partners
2. Partnership – Develop and maintain highly-effective university partnerships
3. Our people – Develop a safe, highly-engaged, skilled and collaborative organisation
4. Accommodation – Apply effective asset management to provide good quality, value for money accommodation
5. Continuous improvement – Promote a culture of continuous improvement by embracing technology, innovation and driving efficiencies
6. Development – Develop highly-effective and innovative design, construction and funding capabilities

Our Values

Our values are summed up in one phrase – ‘partnership, innovation and community – delivered responsibly’.

Partnership is at the core of what we do, it’s in our name, we have a proven track record for working with our partners to realise mutual long-term objectives and we always aim to be the partner of choice in the UK higher education sector

Innovation is how we exceed the expectations of our partners now and in the future – whether that’s new approaches to completing transactions, procuring funding or student experience

Community drives student experience and we foster welcoming, healthy and safe communities which support our student residents to succeed in university life

Responsibility is ours to be the best possible partner, to innovate, foster student communities and keep our people safe

Our Story

Since our inception in 1998, our strategy has focused on a partnership model.

We purposely designed our Group structure to ensure we are effective at developing, operating and managing our assets over the life of each concession, and we placed our entire portfolio on cost-effective long-term borrowing, effectively removing all refinancing risk.

In 2013, we made our debut £382.1 million public bond issuance. With a multicurrency programme size of £5 billion, the issuance was the first of its kind within the higher education sector. It illustrated our ongoing ambition to bring long-term institutional investment to UK higher education.

We launched a further tranche of £149.7 million index-linked senior secured notes under our investment-grade programme in 2014.

In 2018, we listed on The International Stock Exchange (TISE) enabling us to convert into a UK ‘Real Estate Investment Trust’ (REIT).

Today, our strategy remains the same simple one – to bring together the longevity of university business models, with cost-effective long-dated borrowing, in long-term partnerships for the mutual benefit of universities, students and investors alike.

We plan to continue to grow our portfolio, which now has over 36,000 rooms in operation or under construction with 15 university partners, and to actively build resilience across our Company by remaining true to the model that we developed two decades ago.