Daily Management Review

Blackstone pays $6B for IQ Student Accommodation


03/02/2020


Blackstone Investment Fund acquires IQ Student Accommodation, which owns 66 dormitories with 28 thousand beds in the UK. Blackstone will pay Goldman Sachs and the Wellcome Trust, now the owners of the company, $ 6 billion. This will become the largest real estate transaction in the history of Great Britain.



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pixabay
Blackstone Group, an American investment fund, bought the British company IQ Student Accommodation, which owns several dozens of student dormitories, from Goldman Sachs Bank and the Wellcome Trust charity fund. The deal amounted to £ 4.66 billion ($ 6 billion), this is the largest real estate transaction in the history of the UK.

IQ owns 66 dormitories with 28 thousand beds in 27 British cities, including London, Edinburgh, Manchester, Oxford and Liverpool.

According to the Financial Times, 80% of the hostels it owns are located in cities that have universities from the so-called Russell group, which unites 24 elite British universities.

IQ was established in 2006 by the Wellcome Trust charity foundation, and in 2016, hostel-owned hostels teamed up with hostels run by Goldman Sachs. After that, the bank owned a 70 percent stake in IQ, Wellcome Trust owned a 28% stake in the company. Blackstone buys stakes in both major IQ shareholders. The deal still needs to get regulatory approval. As Blackstone CEO James Seppala noted, this deal is "evidence of our long-term faith in the UK."

source: ft.com