Unilodge at Kensington Street is one of GIC’s new student housing assets
GIC has made its third major student housing investment of 2017 as the Singaporean sovereign wealth fund is said to have agreed to pay A$400 million ($302 million) to purchase a pair of Sydney student blocks from Frasers Property Australia and Japan’s Sekisui House.
The Singaporean mega-investor is buying a total of 1,043 beds for a Sydney record A$400,000 ($302,000) per bed, according to an account in IPE Real Estate, citing sources familiar with the transaction.
With this Aussie deal GIC has now been involved in more than more than $2.1 billion in student housing investments in 2017, and over $3 billion in such deals across the UK, Europe, North America, and now Australia, over the last year.
Adding to GIC’s Australian Portfolio
GIC CEO Lim Chow Kiat seems to have a taste for student housing
The sovereign wealth fund’s new Aussie assets are located in the master-planned Central Park development in the southern Sydney suburb of Chippendale. The local affiliate of the Singaporean development and investment firm also last week announced that it had entered into an agreement to provide a provide a A$190 million purchase option on a hotel and commercial space in Central Park to a local Australian firm.
Frasers and Sekisui House had put the student housing assets, which are near the University of Technology Sydney, the University of Sydney and the city’s Notre Dame University, on the market last year. GIC is said to be planning to manage its new acquisition through Iglu, a company the sovereign wealth fund acquired for A$150 million through a 2014 joint venture with Macquarie Capital when it made its first foray into Australia’s student housing market.
GIC’s Student Housing Spree Continues
This deal makes the third major GIC deal for student housing so far this year. In March the Singaporean sovereign wealth fund partnered with Canada’s largest pension fund manager (CPPIB) to expand on its year-old Scion Student Communities joint venture with a $1.6 billion deal of 29 assets.
Prior to that US deal, in February GIC acquired its third European student housing project in five months as the sovereign wealth fund agreed to invest in a £ Whoa. Easy now...we only own 20% + of the beds, not 100 % Still SUPER bullish, but lets not get carried away here