Leading private equity investor LDC has made a minority investment in market leading student accommodation advertising platform, UniHomes, as the business continues its expansion across the UK.
Based in Sheffield and operating in 41 locations nationwide, UniHomes helps students find their perfect university ‘home from home’, by connecting them with thousands of student properties offering all-inclusive living. Letting agents are able to integrate the UniHomes platform with their back-office systems and generate enquiries to fill their student accommodation portfolios.
Founded in 2015 by Phil Greaves, Bradley Cox and Luca Mori, the business will use LDC’s investment to accelerate its regional growth ambitions and further develop the platform and service provision for both its student and letting agent customers.
Yorkshire-based dealmakers Castle Square Corporate Finance provided advice to the UniHomes and its shareholders. Freeths provided legal and tax advice.
Castle Square Managing Director, Kevan Shaw said: “Since being formed only eight years ago UniHomes has achieved incredible growth and success going from start up, to scale up, to being the market leader in its space in such a relatively short space of time. We are delighted to have advised the Company on this investment, and in LDC onboard an investor who will help deliver the next phase of growth.”
The investment was led by Dan Smith, Partner and Head of Yorkshire at LDC, Investment Director James Marshall and Investment Manager Ana-Maria Garaba.
Phil Greaves, Co-Founder of UniHomes, said: “We’re incredibly proud of the business we’ve built over the past eight years, having established ourselves as part of the fabric of the student accommodation market. The team at LDC really understood our purpose, our model and its potential, and so stood out as the ideal investment partner to work alongside as we accelerate growth and look to support even more letting agents and students across the UK.”
LDC’s Dan Smith added: “The UniHomes journey so far has been impressive, and the founders have achieved remarkable scale in just a few years. We’re pleased to support the team as they drive further investment into the technology platform and lead the way in the all-inclusive student accommodation market, which is fast becoming the default model in the sector.”
LDC has an extensive track record in backing management teams in the property sector including iamproperty, Linley & Simpson, Lomond Group and Property Software Group.
LDC was advised by EY (Corporate Finance, Financial & Tax Due Diligence), Womble Bond Dickinson (Legal), Graph Strategy (Commercial Due Diligence) and Catalysis (Management Due Diligence).
--End—
NOTES TO THE EDITOR
Sheffield based Castle Square Corporate Finance offer pro-active corporate finance advice to clients throughout the UK, tailoring our service to our clients and their markets, giving us an enviable record of successfully completing deals, including acquisitions and mergers, Management Buy-Outs
and Buy-Ins, finance raising and disposals.
Contact Details:
Kerry Webster (Office Manager)
Castle Square Corporate Finance
Tel: 0114 213 8353
Mob: 07709 715765
[email protected]
twitter: @castlesquarecf
website: www.castlesquarecf.co.uk
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/castle-square-corporate-finance
