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Places for People to manage funds for retirement house builder
One of the UK’s largest housing associations is to manage funds for a huge provider of retirement housing, which is attempting to enter the rental market.
McCarthy & Stone, responsible for building and selling more than 70% of the UK’s owner-occupied retirement housing each year, used its annual results to announce further details on its “strategic relationship” with Places for People’s fund management business, PfP Capital, first mentioned in September.
The relationship has so far seen 126 apartments, mostly with one bedroom, sold across 27 sites. The properties will be held within a specialist retirement fund being established by PfP Capital and then offered for private rent on the open market.
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Clive Fenton, chief executive of McCarthy & Stone, told a meeting of investors and analysts at the launch of the results: “We have had discussions with other investors. What we’ve found is that other investors are very interested in this space but they’re not as far advanced in their thought process as Places for People are.
“At the moment, we’re focusing quite hard on Places for People, but we are still having discussions with other people as well, and I’m sure there’ll be other entrants into that market over time.”
PfP Capital, according to McCarthy & Stone’s annual results, aims to grow its assets under management from £150m to over £750m “in the short to medium term”.
McCarthy & Stone built 2,302 homes in the year to 31 August, a slight increase from 2,926 in the previous year. It saw a slight fall in its gross profits, from £136.4m to £130.7m and a 10% fall in its underlying operating profit, from £107.2m to £96.2m.
Mr Fenton said: “We achieved a strong result in the second half of the year and delivered an improvement in both margins and volumes compared to the first half of FY17.
“We have sufficient land under control, much of which already has detailed planning consent, to deliver our strategic growth plan of building and selling more than 3,000 units per annum.”
