SIGMA Capital has successful raised £250 million through a new real estate investment trust (REIT).
The group’s chief executive Graham Barnet described the launch of a new property trust, which will invest in the private sector rental market, as a “momentous event”.
Edinburgh-based Sigma said the launch of the PRS REIT fund, which will list on the main London market from May 31, was “significantly oversubscribed”.
Mr Barnet said the PRS model, which is more widely adopted in the US and Europe, will be a key part of any measures taken to address the UK’s housing problem.
The company’s objective is to provide investors with an attractive level of income together with the prospect of income and capital growth through the investment in a portfolio of newly-constructed, residential PRS sites of multiple units.
The target dividend yield in the period to 30 June 2018 is five per cent.
The UK Government’s Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) secured 9.99 per cent of the issue with a £25m direct investment.
The £245m net proceeds will be used to build a portfolio mainly comprising family homes across England.
Mr Barnet said: “The launch of the PRS REIT is a momentous event for Sigma. It transforms Sigma’s model, giving the company control over a pool of capital to deliver, with our partners, a substantial pipeline of PRS opportunities.”
A pipeline of about 2,535 new homes with a cost approaching £375m has already been identified and contracted, including the acquisition of about £72m of assets which are completed or under construction.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here