Big super ready to retake M&A test at Campus Living Villages
Campus Living Villages, which runs 46 on-campus student accommodation facilities across the world, is ready to test bidder appetite after bedding down a restructure.
Street Talk can reveal CLV’s four superannuation fund owners – Hostplus, Rest Super, Equip Super and NGS Super – are close to appointing Goldman Sachs to run a sale process for the business, whose operations span 27,100 beds.
Sources said the super funds, which last fronted bidders via UBS in 2016, are putting it back on the auction block after whipping it into shape. They are confident of securing a payday this time around, and ran a so-called “beauty parade” to select a financial adviser earlier this year.
CLV was founded in Sydney in 2002, where it still has villages at Sydney University and UNSW. In the two decades since, it has expanded into the United Kingdom and the US, which are both now bigger businesses than its country of birth.
It works in partnership with universities, in a model that cushions earnings. That’s a different modus operandi to rivals like Scape, which is an off-campus owner and developer of student accommodation. Former Stockland Commercial Property boss John Schroder leads CLV’s C-suite, while Joe Dicks is chairman.
Eyes on Greystar, MacCap
Long-time readers of this column will recall CLV was shopped with 45,000 beds and a $2 billion price marker by UBS’s Luke Bentvelzen – since off to Barrenjoey – in 2016. The process targeted real estate and infrastructure investors, and attracted a bid from real estate group Greystar, while Macquarie Capital tried to put together a consortium. However, seven months later the buyer hunt was called off, amid questions around whether CLV’s global portfolio needed to be broken up to attract a credible bid.
At the time, CLV’s Canberra arm had been carved out of the sale due to issues with a $45 million loan that counted Commonwealth Bank among its lenders. In 2018, 333 Capital was tasked with finding a solution for the Canberra entity.
The rebooted process is expected to target infrastructure investors, many of which are now invested in the sector. As an example, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC and Macquarie Capital invested in Aussie player Iglu Student Accommodation in 2014.
Another local platform, The Switch, is backed by property bigwig Nuveen. Well-known brand UniLodge struck a partnership last year with Australian Unity and MaxCap to build $1 billion worth of student pads.
