UK Living Series: The Continued Boom Of Student Housing

John Jacobs is Global Head of Capital Markets ​at GSA, where he ​manages both the debt and new equity teams. Together they are responsible for originating ​new funding transactions within existing and new markets, the overall refinancing strategy for GSA’s global portfolio and new capital raising activity. John joined GSA in 2017 and has over ​20 years’ experience in corporate banking, real estate and negotiating property transactions in multiple countries including the US, UK, Spain, Australia, and Ireland. Prior to GSA, John spent 13 years in ​corporate banking in Ireland. John has a BA Economics from University College Dublin (UCD) and is a ​qualified chartered banker. GSA has $6bn of assets under management and an unrivalled international presence, active across nine countries with assets in 70 of the world’s leading educational cities. GSA is part of The Dot Group, a transformational force in global student living.

Jonathan is currently Head of Corporate Real Estate lending responsible for over £1bn of loan assets, and specialises in providing development finance for PBSA, residential and industrial projects. He has worked at Investec for 8 years having previously qualified as a Chartered Accountant at EY. Since 2011, Investec Real Estate has passed the £1bn mark in its lending to the UK PBSA sector supporting more than 17 clients with the delivery of 22,000 beds across 52 schemes in 23 cities.

Maria is a Vice President at TPG, a leading global private investment firm with approximately $135 billion of assets under management. She is based in London where she has worked on several real estate transactions across Europe. Prior to joining TPG in 2018, Maria started her career at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Maria holds a M.Sc. in Finance and a B.Sc. in Business Administration and Management from Bocconi University in Milan. She serves on the Board of Directors of Tempore Properties SOCIMI, one of the leading public PRS platforms in Spain and on the Supervisory Board of Studio Babelsberg, a leading movie studio in Germany.

John is Commercial Director for the Commercial Real Estate team at Aldermore. He is responsible for developing new propositions and enhancing the customer journey to meet growing demand. John has 30 years’ experience in the industry having previously worked in a number of national roles at Bank of Scotland, CYBG and NAB.

James Rosenfeld is a Managing Director in the Real Estate Group based in London. Mr. Rosenfeld focuses on Blackstone’s real estate acquisitions in the UK. Since joining Blackstone in 2014, Mr. Rosenfeld has been involved in a number of Blackstone’s investments in the UK, including iQ Student Accommodation, Sage Housing, and The Office Group. Before joining Blackstone, Mr. Rosenfeld was an Analyst in the investment banking division at Goldman Sachs International. Mr. Rosenfeld graduated from the University of Oxford with a first-class degree in History and received an MPhil in Real Estate Finance from the University of Cambridge.

Astrid Stanley is a partner specialising in commercial real estate and is a co-lead of the student accommodation group. Astrid has established herself as a go-to solicitor in the practice and advises developers, investors and High Net Worth individuals across real estate development and investment transactions. Her strength is her deep understanding of the real estate market and provides her clients with strong commercial and strategic advice throughout a transaction. Her practice covers student accommodation, living, mixed-use, office, industrial and logistics and hotels & leisure sectors. Astrid's expertise is in development and she has an ability to advise on large scale and complex transactions, with a strength in client relationships management. Astrid has broadened her experience in the development team, advising investors, landlords and occupiers on commercial acquisitions for lease and development acquisitions for sale and forward funding.

Integral to the growth and development of Vita, in particular Vita Student, Max Bielby, is a company success story, joining as an intern and rising through the business to be Managing Directing of Vita Student and now Chief Operating Officer of Vita Group. Max is focussed on delivering the platform’s outstanding user experience, responsible for everything from customer service and marketing to product development and wellbeing. Max’s attention to detail and thirst for creating an outstanding level of service ensures that Vita’s product offer is second to none.

Murdo co-founded Straits Capitol in 2018 with the backing of Singapore Press Holdings. From a standing start the company grew to c 9,000 beds or c.£1bn of PBSA under management – the 8 th largest Student company by beds at the time. The assets, which were operated under the in-house platform they created, traded under the Student Castle and Capitol Student brands. The company was sold in 2022 to a consortium including Mapletree and Capitaland. In June 2022 Murdo co-founded a Joint Venture with Global Asset manager Abrdn. MYS Living is the first Values Led Student Housing Company and currently has application submitted for Pending B-Corp Status.

Alexandre Grellier, CEO of Drooms, has been managing the company from the Frankfurt HQ since 2003 and has played a key role in the development of Drooms' German commercial activities. He previously worked as a lawyer at Lehman Brothers both in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and in London, UK, with a particular focus in the fields of Legal & Compliance and Transaction Management. After training at Fresenius AG, Grellier completed his law studies at the University of Augsburg and began his career at Commerzbank. Grellier has established himself in the real estate industry as an expert in the secure management of highly sensitive company information. Grellier is a guest speaker primarily on the topics of digitization, due diligence, transaction management, data security and entrepreneurship and is regularly represented in the press.

Philip Hirst is Greystar’s Director for Sustainability, Europe and is responsible for setting and implementing Greystar’s sustainability strategy across its business, assets, developments and operations throughout Europe. Prior to joining Greystar at the start of 2023, Philip gained 20 years’ experience creating, implementing, and communicating sustainability strategies across the UK, Europe, and Middle East and has over a decade of experience leading a team within JLL’s Sustainability Consultancy. Philip holds a bachelor’s degree in Business and a master’s degree in Real Estate Development & Investment. Throughout his career, he has contributed to a number of thought leadership publications around the topic of sustainability and been involved in a number of “industry firsts”, including some of the first social impact assessments of real estate and helping to establish new real estate impact investment funds.

Ms. Stamate-Rocha joined Patron in 2011, and focuses on healthcare, education and affordable housing related investment opportunities, with responsibilities including origination, execution, due diligence, execution, asset management and business plan implementation. Prior to joining Patron, Ms. Irina Stamate-Rocha worked in investment banking at Rothschild, Macquarie Capital Advisers and Fortis Bank (Brussels). Ms. Stamate-Rocha’s experience includes the origination and execution of transactions for private equity and infrastructure funds. Ms. Stamate-Rocha holds a Masters in Finance degree from Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School and she obtained a Bachelor in Economics from the Academy of Economics, Bucharest.

Paula Willmore set up Willmore Iles Architects in 1999, with her business partner Andrew Iles. They had one client, UPP and two projects; the first Design, Build, Finance and Operate (DBFO) student halls in the UK at the University of Plymouth and a similar student scheme at the University of Reading. For the past twenty-four years, the practice has grown steadily to over 30 staff, bringing together a dedicated team of experts with specific student experience and knowledge, diversifying its services to support the developing needs of clients and end users. During that time, they have worked with their clients to develop schemes that support an outstanding student experience, carrying out research that supports the development of communities through design and which in turn supports the differing profiles of student use. The practice has recognised for many years the importance of supporting student wellbeing through the design of high quality spaces and the enabling of key services that are critical to giving students an excellent university experience. Many local authorities and universities have declared a climate emergency over the past six years and companies have recognised the importance of this with ESG initiatives becoming central to their values and required project outcomes. The practice has worked with clients to design and deliver sustainable and affordable solutions for their projects that meet their objectives. Willmore Iles have built up a reputation with some of the best student accommodation providers and universities as a leading architectural practice in the sector, completing over 23,000 PBSA bedrooms, gaining planning consent and delivered on site, to date. Two current projects, showing the diverse nature of the demands of the sector are: One of the largest passivhaus student accommodation schemes in the UK, with 1771 new rooms at the University of Exeter for first year students. A creative reuse project in Exeter city centre, 103 student bedrooms in a redundant office building for the returning student market - client led sustainability targets.

Marc is the owner and principal of CE International, based in the South-West of England, that produces furniture for commercial clients through its Roger Lewis and The Conran Shop brands. Roger Lewis is a Bespoke British Manufacturer for large volume residential, hospitality and urban living projects. CE also oversees the distribution of The Conran Shop’s exclusive in-house designs to the UK commercial market. The offering includes the countless seating, table, cabinetry, sleep, lighting, and outdoor furniture designs that make up The Conran Shop’s considered contemporary edit. Marc’s long term vision is to be part of create a circular economy and offer ‘furniture as a service’. The goal is to create a circular system that starts with quality, and as the furniture reaches the end of its life, it is repurposed or recycled, reducing the amount of waste that ends up in landfill.