Berkeley to invest £175m in joint ventures with Saad

The Berkeley Group is to invest £175m in three joint ventures with Saad Investment Company. The first joint venture will operate as a land fund to acquire new development opportunities and will secure planning before disposing to the second or third companies. The second company will operate as a development company and the third as a property investment company. Saad will be the biggest investor in the three ventures, which are expected to achieve a final value of £500m, with a 29.2% stake.  Berkeley, the residential-led, mixed-use urban regenerator and home builder, will invest £175m in the venture over a 10 year period to create a land bank of around 10,000 sites. The land fund will invest in development opportunities which cannot be accommodated within Berkeley’s usual acquisition criteria, including land options, freehold land or land currently with commercial use with a high capital requirement and/or relatively long planning lead time. Saad has been an investor in Berkeley for twenty years.