Vistry to sell new homes to Blackstone in £580m rental deal
Private housing rental firm Leaf Living will manage the property portfolio.
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Your support makes all the difference.Housebuilder Vistry has struck a £580 million deal to sell 1,750 new homes to private equity giant Blackstone and partner Regis.
The deal will provide Blackstone, and its minority investor partner, with a raft of properties to be rented out.
Leaf Living, the private housing rental firm backed by Blackstone and Regis, will manage the property portfolio.
By working in partnership with organisations like Leaf Living, we can maximise the number of high-quality homes we deliver every year
The housing portfolio is concentrated in the South East of England across 36 Vistry sites, primarily from plots across Vistry’s old housebuilding landbank.
The first homes covered by the deal are expected to complete at the end of this month, with the majority of completion set to take place over the next two years.
Greg Fitzgerald, chief executive of Vistry Group, said: “By working in partnership with organisations like Leaf Living, we can maximise the number of high-quality homes we deliver every year.
This year we are on track to deliver more than a 10% increase in new home completions, playing a key part in helping to address the UK's acute housing shortage
“This agreement supports our differentiated business model, with the certainty provided by the pre-selling of homes enabling us to accelerate our build programmes, guarantee work for our supply chain, reduce sales and build costs and create vibrant new communities.
“This year we are on track to deliver more than a 10% increase in new home completions, playing a key part in helping to address the UK’s acute housing shortage.”
James Seppala, head of European real estate at Blackstone, said: “Institutional private capital can play an important role in providing high quality housing stock across the UK, particularly in the private rented sector which is significantly undersupplied today.
“Partnerships such as these can meaningfully accelerate the delivery of new homes and help alleviate structural undersupply across the sector.”
We are not changing any forecasts on the back of this announcement, but see it as further reassurance that the partnerships model has legs
Vistry has increased its focus on partnership to build affordable housing after taking over housebuilder Countryside in 2022 for £1.25 billion.
Analysts at Peel Hunt said: “We are not changing any forecasts on the back of this announcement, but see it as further reassurance that the partnerships model has legs.
“The group has now signed nine notable deals since the start of September 2023, with a total of around 14,400 homes worth probably more than £4 billion of revenue.”
Shares in Vistry were down 0.7% on Tuesday afternoon.