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Blackstone-backed providers agree £819m deal to acquire more than 2,900 homes
Vistry Group has signed an £819m partnership deal with two Blackstone-backed providers that will acquire 2,915 homes.
Leaf Living and Sage Homes, which are both also backed by Regis Group, have put pen to paper on a deal to acquire the homes that are located on plots across 70 of Vistry’s developments.
Delivery is expected to begin this year and the majority of homes completed within the next two years.
It is the first such deal since Vistry announced it will merge its housebuilding arm with its partnerships business to focus solely on mixed-tenure affordable housing.
After the plans were announced, Stephen Teagle, chief executive of Countryside Partnerships, which a part of Vistry Group, spoke to Inside Housing about his plans to refocus the firm’s efforts on delivering affordable housing.
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He said: “There are over 30,000 plots in our housebuilding business that we would like to deploy in our partnerships model. The open market land sites that we’ve built up, we really want to bring forward those land resources and pre-sell them to affordable providers so that we can deliver homes more quickly.”
In a release, Vistry this new deal shows that these development plots are being pre-sold in-line within its strategy of pre-selling around 65% of all homes across the business.
The transaction comprises 1,522 homes for the private rented sector being delivered to Leaf and 1,393 affordable homes for rent and shared ownership being delivered to Sage.
Vistry and Sage intend to utilise their existing Homes England grant funding under the Affordable Homes Programme to enable an initial tranche of delivery of both rented and shared ownership affordable homes.
Greg Fitzgerald, chief executive of Vistry Group, said: “We have an excellent track record of working in partnership with Leaf and Sage to deliver new homes, and I am extremely pleased to have reached agreement to grow these relationships through this exciting, market-leading opportunity.
“Through our unique partnerships model, Vistry is maintaining the momentum of delivery of much-needed affordable housing across the UK.
“Our strategy gives the group significantly greater visibility on earnings than traditional house builders and this new partnership, and others to follow, will help us drive towards our medium-term targets and the delivery of £1bn of shareholder distributions over the next three years.”
James Seppala, head of real estate Europe at Blackstone, said: “Public-private partnerships such as this are critical for addressing the undersupply of housing in the UK. Blackstone is proud to be one of the largest capital providers for affordable housing in the UK and we are excited to expand our positive impact through this investment.”
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