ESP: Empiric Student Property raising £66m cash to fund further asset purchases
Empiric Student Property has published a prospectus to raise up to £66m initially through an open offer and placing of 65m shares, with the potential to issue up to 300m shares during the next 12 months. ESP IPO’d on the London Stock Exchange on 30 June 2014 raising an initial £85m which is now substantially invested, or committed to a portfolio of 13 high quality purpose-built student accommodation properties, both operating and under development. Recent purchases include the Selly Oak apartments in Birmingham (pictured).
ESP has a near-term pipeline comprising of 15 UK properties in advanced negotiations (an aggregate of more than 1,800 beds) that represents a total commitment of approximately £180 million. ESP currently expects all of these will be acquired by March 2015. ESP also has a pipeline of projects, at earlier stages of due diligence, with a potential commitment of between £400m and £600m and ESP’s longer term stated objective is to grow the portfolio to between 8,000 and 10,000. The fund raise will allow ESP to move closer to this objective.
About Empiric Student Property
Empiric Student Property is a real estate investment trust (REIT) that listed on the main market of the London Stock Exchange in June 2014. Its investment objective to provide Shareholders with regular, sustainable and growing long-term dividends (which it will seek to grow at least in line with the RPI inflation index) together with the potential for capital appreciation over the medium to long term. It maintains a portfolio of modern, direct-let, nominated or leased student accommodation across the UK.
Empiric Student Property is focused on investing in, and developing, high quality self-contained residential accommodation in locations where the Executive Directors believe attractive opportunities exist for the Company to exploit demand for student residential accommodation at the higher end of the quality scale. To deliver the high quality and high-end experience, the individual sizes of the assets are generally expected to be between 50 to 200 beds. In addition, each property will generally have:
- studios and 1 – 3 bedroom apartments;
- generous space per student bed;
- all rooms with en-suite bathroom and kitchen facilities; and
- communal facilities to typically include: a cinema room, study rooms, a gym and break-out areas
Empiric Student Property describes itself as being a multi-niche student property company focused on, (i) providing good quality first year accommodation managed through its Hello Student® operating platform in partnership with universities, (ii) offering a variety of second and third year purpose built accommodation options for individual students and those wanting a group living environment, and (iii) continuing to expand the Group’s existing premium, studio-led accommodation portfolio which is attractive to international and postgraduate students.