Nick Weber’s Henderson Park investment vehicle has provided the backing for Greystar’s £140.5m acquisition of a 172-home Barratt Portfolio.
It is the first UK deal for the £500m fund, set up by Mount Kellett’s former head of European operations, which launched in September 2016 with backing from Stone Point Capital, Kuwait Investment Authority and Wafra Investment Advisory Group.
Henderson Park is believed to have provided around 90% of the capital for the deal.
The firm has previously said it will look to invest in both assets and companies, directly or through debt. Its first deal was the purchase of the Le Meridien Etoile hotel in Paris for €365m (£314m) in November 2016.
The sale of the Barratt portfolio to Greystar was long in the offing.
Barratt initially put 303 units across four London schemes up for sale in March 2016. On the open market they had a price tag of around £320m – £1.1m each – though there was expected to be a bulk-sale discount.
The flats created considerable interest when they were put up for sale, though there were constraints: they were not purpose-built for rent; they were broken up across blocks; and the make-up of the portfolio was not fixed. The slowing prime market, changes to stamp duty in the March budget and the EU referendum all added complications to any potential deal.
Almost a year later, Greystar bought 172 of the flats for £140.5m, an average of £810,000 each. The flats are spread across three sites: 29 at Aldgate Place, E1, 25 in Fulham Riverside, SW6, and 118 in an entire tower at Nine Elms Point in Vauxhall, SW8.
Greystar has announced plans to replicate its large scale US build-to-rent model in the UK. However, it uses different pots of money for different types of developments, hence its tie-up with Henderson Park.
This is the US PRS giant’s third residential transaction since it entered the UK in 2015. It has bought 400 flats in Millharbour, E14, and the former GlaxoSmithKline and J Lyons site in Greenford, where it has submitted plans for more than 2,000 homes.
Since putting the portfolio up for sale Barratt has started to offer phases from its larger schemes to the PRS investment market across entire unbuilt blocks at the Nestle Factory in Hayes, and Meridian Water in Enfield.
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