Realstar Group, the owner of BTR brand UNCLE, owns over $8 billion of assets in Canada and the UK and has a rental portfolio of more than 25,000 apartments
UNCLE, a well-established Build to Rent (BTR) brand owned by Realstar Group, has announced a $1 billion transformative investment to grow to more than $5 billion of assets over the next five years.
Realstar, which owns and manages over $8 billion of assets in Canada and the UK and has a rental portfolio of more than 25,000 apartments, has revealed that QuadReal Property Group has invested around $1 billion (approx £735 million) to acquire a majority interest in eight of its UK assets. Seven of these are in London and one in Manchester.
Four of these assets form part of Realstar’s UNCLE-branded BTR portfolio, including its flagship 45-story tower in the centre of Elephant & Castle, as well its Stockwell, New Cross and Manchester buildings.
QuadReal has already partnered with Realstar on six other UNCLE developments in London, bringing its rapidly growing residential rental portfolio under the UNCLE brand to 10 locations, ‘representing nearly $2.5 billion of assets and growing’.
As well as its investment in the properties, QuadReal is also acquiring an ownership stake in Realstar’s UK management business, which owns the UK rights to the UNCLE brand.
Ryan Prince, the vice-chairman of Realstar Group since 2002 and the founder and chief executive of UNCLE, established the brand in the first place with a mission of bringing a ‘sense of trust and decency’ back to the rental experience. It first launched in May 2017 and, similar to a hotel chain, aims to create neighbourhoods in multiple locations with varying price points in the largest global cities.
We have worked in partnership with QuadReal and its clients as a trusted business ally for many years, Prince said. However, under this new relationship, they will become partners alongside us in the UK on both the brand and operations, as well as the bricks and mortar. This joined-up approach will be a real advantage in achieving our goal to double (and hopefully triple) the size of the UNCLE portfolio over the next five years.
