(Bloomberg) -- Two of the world’s largest real estate investors partnered to buy a €540 million ($567 million) portfolio of student housing across France from Gecina, as demand for the space continues to swell among major asset managers.
Global Student Accommodation partnered with TIAA’s real estate investment managers Nuveen Real Estate to acquire the assets, according to a statement on Wednesday. The portfolio is “heavily weighted towards Paris” but ultimately includes housing that provides 3,600 beds in Bordeaux, Lille, Lyon and Marseille.
“Purpose-built student accommodation in continental Europe continues to be one of Nuveen’s highest conviction strategies,” Jasper Gilbey, head of housing and alternatives at Nuveen, said in the statement. The French market, he said, “has historically been a challenging market to enter given the dominance of domestic capital.”
Student housing has been one of the more resilient markets within real estate around the world, buoyed by continued growth in enrollment numbers at universities. France, for its part, has the second-largest European student population and over 10% of students in the country are international.
Last year, Blackstone Inc.’s iQ Student Accommodation business bought properties in London and Edinburgh as the private equity firm continues to bet on the shortage of purpose-built housing in the UK’s top university cities. It followed that up with a deal earlier this year where it agreed to sell a student-housing portfolio to KKR & Co. for $1.64 billion.
On the latest deal, Nuveen will act as investment adviser to the joint venture, while GSA will be the asset manager. TD Securities and Barclays Plc are financial advisors to GSA, which manages $7 billion of assets. Morgan Stanley is advising Gecina.
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