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Empiric agrees £32m loan after acquiring new student property site

Property developers Empiric Student Property have agreed a new £32.8m loan facility and have also secured a new development site in Bath.

The development loan, which has been secured against five forward-funded developments currently in its portfolio, is to be provided by Allied Irish Bank and will be unlocked in stages upon successful completion of each of the five assets which are scheduled to be ready by July 2017.

Paul Hadaway, who is Chief Executive of Empiric Student Property, believes the new ‘highly competitive’ loan facility validates the firm’s business model despite the current uncertainty in the markets.

He said: “We are very pleased to have secured this debt facility with Allied Irish Bank which demonstrates that, even in volatile markets, funding at highly competitive pricing is available for companies, such as Empiric, with a solid business model.

“The Facility will help to maximise the Group’s development potential by recycling equity currently committed to our forward funded developments.”

In further developments at Empiric, the group also announced to the London Stock Exchange this morning that it has acquired another student accommodation site in Bath.

The newly-constructed 31-bed property, which will be the group’s fifth in the city, is situated at 2 Oolite Road and has been acquired for £2.6m from local developer IESIS Limited who completed the development in May ahead of the new academic year.

Empiric have also entered into a nomination agreement with University of Bath, which will see beds at the site offered at market rate to University of Bath students for the next five years.

Commenting on the new site, Paul added: “We are very pleased to have acquired our fifth student accommodation property in Bath. At the start of the 2016/17 academic year, we will have a total of 385 beds in operation in Bath, all of which are subject to nomination agreements with the University of Bath.

“As a UNESCO World Heritage city, there are limited opportunities for suitable development sites in Bath, which has two key universities with increasing student numbers and applications.”

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