LISTEN: Gravis Capital Partners, the parent asset management group of GCP Student Living, has rebranded as Gravis.
GCP Student Living was the first UK-based student accommodation REIT and was formed in 2013.
Parent company Gravis was formed in 2008 and is now an established investor in the alternative income arena. It recently raised £70m from a share placing in order for GCP Student Living to acquire and forward-fund the development of two student accommodation blocks in Brighton.
Gravis also bought one of competing student housing owner Unite’s most expensive properties in London – Woburn Place in Bloomsbury, WC1, for £135m, a 4.5% yield – in a deal which completed in March this year.
Its student accommodation fund – along with GCP Infrastructure Investments Ltd and GCP Asset Backed Income Fund – will not be renamed as part of the rebranding process.
The student accommodation arm primarily focuses on London, but is now considering further regional acquisitions following its successful acquisition in Brighton.
Tom Ward, founder, said: “We will continue to invest where we are but there are a number of cities outside London which share characteristics, particularly in Brighton, Oxford, Cambridge and cities with very high quality educational institutions, and we will try to access assets in those areas.”
GCP’s properties are run by operating platform Scape. There are currently six properties comprising 1,923 operational beds as well as a further 760 in the pipeline in developments.
On the rebrand, Gravis executive director Stephen Ellis said: “It feels like the right time to take stock of the last decade and look at how we continue that success for our clients, our people and our investors. We needed to make sure we had a brand that did justice to the exciting, ground-breaking and successful business we have built and that the image we put out to the world truly represents who we are and who we want to be as a business. The combination of this has given our team a clear and powerful point of view that will support our objectives as we continue to grow the business.”
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