Listed student accommodation firm plans to sell £300-£400m of portfolio in strategic plan to focus on UK’s leading universities
Student accommodation giant the Unite Group is planning to dispose of £300-400m of its portfolio this year in a bid to focus on the UK’s leading universities.
In a trading update released today the group said that £130m of disposals were either complete under offer or being marketed with a further £500m planned in the next six to 12 months.
The update said: “Our strategy is focused on increasing our alignment to the UK’s leading universities where we see the strongest prospects for housing demand and future rental growth.
”To achieve this, we have already increased our disposal programme and the board is exploring options to further accelerate our transition to a more focused, higher-quality portfolio.”
Around three quarters of Unite’s beds have been reserved for the 2026/27 academic year and the group said it continues to expect occupancy and rental growth at the lower end of its 93%-96% and 2%-3% forecast ranges, respectively.
The firm said it was progressing with the integration of developer Empiric which it bought last year and it had achieved £3m of annualised cost synergies. “We remain confident in delivering our targets for £9m in cost synergies in 2026 and £17m pa from 2027 onwards,” the group said.
The group said it is well protected from recent energy price increases having fully hedged utility costs in 2026 by around 70% for 2027.
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