Aviva Investors completes £35 million loan to Arlington Investors for student accommodation in Leeds

Aviva Investors has completed a £35 million loan to Arlington Investors (Arlington) for the acquisition of a cluster of student accommodation assets from Rockspring.

The asset is mainly purpose built student accommodation with a small proportion of converted space providing a total of 719 letting bed spaces. It is subject to a short term lease agreement with the University of Leeds.

"We were delighted to complete this investment with Arlington. It provides further diversification for the UK debt platform as well as exposure to accommodation catering for students of one of the UK’s highly ranked Universities. We provide long term debt across a number of sectors and this scheme represents a good long term investment for us and our customers."

Florian de Chaisemartin, Director, Infrastructure Debt, Aviva Investors.

The acquisition is the latest addition to Arlington’s portfolio in the sector, taking its holdings to more than 7,800 beds and a total investment of over £500 million. 

George Shweiry, Founder and Chief Executive of Arlington Advisors, commented:

“We believe that the UK student accommodation sector is well positioned to weather the immediate turbulence caused by the UK vote to leave the EU.  Underpinning this is the strong and growing demand from UK and international students for spaces at the country’s higher education institutions, where good quality accommodation directly supports their learning needs. While we continue to grow our student accommodation platform we are also engaged in a range of exciting investment prospects in the UK, where we expect to see additional opportunities to add value for our investors in the short term.”

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