Octopus Capital has announced it has raised a further £118million into its Affordable Housing Fund. The new investment will help to fund the team’s active pipeline and scale its impact-driven strategy.
£50million of the investment has come from Strathclyde Pension Fund, a Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS), £58million is a re-up from London CIV, the investment pool for London’s LGPS community, and £10million is a re-up from Avon LGPS. This takes the total funds under management to over £360million, which includes co-investment capital.
The fund is now backed by a growing group of institutional investors and remains open to new commitments as it scales towards its £1billion target by 2026.
This latest fundraising round coincides with the milestone of owning 500 affordable homes, demonstrating the Fund’s continued ability to deploy capital at pace with its own for-profit registered provider of social housing, NewArch Homes. This follows NewArch Homes buying 220 homes through its recent partnership with Essex-based housing association, CHP, now making it one of the ten largest providers in the country.
This uptick in investment and deployment has resulted in the expansion of the affordable housing team, with the recent hires of Ellie Vlavianou as investment director and Sarah Thomas as non-executive director at NewArch Homes. NewArch Homes says the appointments will help accelerate the team’s mission of delivering high-quality affordable homes in the UK.
Jack Burnham, head of affordable housing at Octopus Capital, commented: “We’re delighted to have Strathclyde on board and to be continuing our relationship with Avon and London CIV. It’s great to see this level of interest in affordable housing from LGPS and also from the Government more broadly. The announcement of a £39billion commitment to the sector over the next decade in their recent spending review is a hugely positive move. It supports the scale-up of affordable housing delivery across the UK — and aligns closely with the priorities of the long-term institutional investors we work with. This commitment gives us the tools and certainty to go further and faster, in partnership with local authorities, housing associations and developers.”
Christopher Osborne, head of real estate at London CIV, said: “London CIV is delighted to have committed a further £58million of capital into the Octopus Affordable Housing Fund, taking its total commitment to £108million. Octopus is on course to deliver the target net returns for our underlying London LGPS Partner Funds and remains focused on increasing the supply of good-quality and energy-efficient affordable homes across the UK. Under the stewardship of Jack Burnham, the team has been bolstered through the recruitment of experienced housing practitioners and investment professionals. We look forward to the Fund continuing to drive both returns and the supply of genuinely affordable and quality homes for some of the most vulnerable members of society.”
Source: Showhouse
