£100m Aitch Group fund buying new portfolio across London and the South East

Leading property developer Aitch Group has announced its commitment to invest up to £100m in land acquisitions across London and the South East of England by the end of 2022 as it eyes further growth in student accommodation, BTR and Retirement Living sectors of the property market.

Having ringfenced the £100m fund at the start of the year, Aitch Group has already deployed £31m across three new sites and has committed to spend a further £35m by the end of August on three other land opportunities. The remaining funds immediately available to spend on new acquisitions by the end of the year.

Aitch Group will focus its future acquisitions on sites either without planning permission or on sites with an existing consent that can be optimised or replanned for Residential, Student Accommodation, Build to Rent or Retirement Living.

Aitch Group are actively seeking new land opportunities without planning permission across London and the South East and encourage new introductions to help grow their development pipeline.

In the residential sector, Aitch Group will look at sites with land values of up to £30m and within price points between £500 to £950 per square foot. In the Student Accommodation sector Aitch Group is seeking sites that can provide over 250 student beds.

Aitch Group has adapted to the challenges of the market and planning system and has further diversified its portfolio of projects. The latest transactions take the planning pipeline to approximately 2,200 residential units, 2,400 Beds of Student accommodation, 30 Retirement living apartments and 60,000 sq. of Industrial space.

The £100m land commitment follows a string of construction and sales success for the business over the last 12 months. Recently, the Joint Venture Partnership of Aitch Group and privately owned property investment and development company VFund revealed plans to restore and transform the Grade I Listed former St Michael & All Angels Church in Shoreditch.

The Aitch Group team is also expanding as the business continues to grow its development portfolio with the appointment of Christopher Chapman as new senior land manager, Phoebe Juggins as senior planning manager and Kenji Holdsworth as planning manager.

Stephen Hollyoak, group land director at Aitch Group says: “Despite very challenging economic conditions the business is performing well at the half year point. Having already committed £66m to land purchases, we are actively seeking new land opportunities without planning permission across London and the South East and encourage new introductions to help us achieve our goals.

“In these difficult times landowners and their representatives are looking for well-funded credible purchasers who do exactly what they say they will - we have an exceptional track record of performing in land transactions.”

By Mark Adair – Correspondent, Bdaily