Legal & General Announces Bath as Next City for Build to Rent Homes

Legal & General now has a total housing pipeline of over 70,000 units, of which 1,200 are BTR homes.

This is Legal & General’s fourth BTR scheme, with existing sites progressing well in Bristol, Salford and Walthamstow. It has £1bn of firepower to invest in developing new large scale rental development properties which will provide rental income for pension funds to pay their pensioners, and create an economic stimulus for UK urban regeneration areas, delivering new jobs and growth. Legal & General has invested £10bn in UK infrastructure, with an aim to invest £15bn.

The Roseberry Place development is ideally located on brownfield land in the Bath City Riverside Enterprise Area on the river, which represents the best opportunity to accommodate new development growth in the city. The site will comprise 171 apartments, 126 car parking spaces and 17,000 sq ft of retail space. It already benefits from outline planning and Legal & General will be working closely with the developer to provide high-quality rental accommodation within a City in much need of additional housing supply.

Dan Batterton, BTR Fund Manager at LGIM Real Assets, said:  “This acquisition is a prime example of the type of compelling opportunities there are in the market at the moment, as we continue to build our pipeline.  We are targeting well-located sites where there is the opportunity to influence all aspects of design and construction from the start to create a best-in-class product that will provide a positive lifestyle choice for elective renters. We remain on track to deliver on the growth plans for our major Build to Rent platform focused on holding assets for the long-term on behalf of investors.”

The Bath scheme has been acquired by LGIM Real Assets on behalf of its BTR fund, together with its joint venture partnership between Legal & General Capital (LGC), the Group’s principal investment arm, and PGGM, the Dutch Pension Fund Manager.

James Lidgate, Director of Housing at Legal & General Capital, said: “This latest acquisition is in line with our strategy of increasing our direct investment exposure to housing and establishing Build to Rent as an institutional asset class – investing Legal & General’s balance sheet capital, alongside other third party capital, to achieve high-quality risk adjusted returns.

“This scheme is an excellent example of the partnership’s asset acquisition strategy - investing in long term sustainable urban schemes that support wider urban regeneration by better utilising the local existing infrastructure, and maximising land density in areas where there is a shortage of housing supply.”

Cushman & Wakefield acted for L&G on this transaction.

-Ends-

L&G’s BTR Platform

Legal & General entered the BTR market in January 2016, through a £600m partnership between Legal & General Capital and PGGM. Committed to raising the standard of UK renting across the board, LGIM Real Assets in December 2016 raised a further £170 million of equity investment to launch an open-ended Build to Rent (BTR) fund. The fund sits alongside the partnership between LGC and PGGM and has £1bn to invest in developing new large scale rental development properties.  It currently has over 1,000 build to rent homes under construction, or in planning, with an initial aim of building over 4,000.