GSA Asia Pacific Launches New Student Accommodation Business for Australia

Press release - Sydney, Hong Kong, - Wednesday, 24th February 2016

GSA Group, the global leader in student accommodation, is pleased to announce today its reentry into the Australian market and opening of its Sydney based offices, with a target of securing 25,000 beds under management by 2025.

The GSA team first entered the Australian market in 2007, leading the purpose built student accommodation market and setting industry standards and benchmarks. GSA is reentering the sector and will leverage its 25-year track record and global platform to deliver a market leading student accommodation experience for international and local students studying in Australia’s top university cities.

GSA previously founded the Australian student accommodation brand Urbanest which has investments across Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide. GSA successfully exited the Urbanest business having created a portfolio of over 4,000 beds.

GSA is established in the UK, Ireland, Germany, UAE, China, Japan and now Australia. GSA is a long term trusted partner of the higher education sector and has developed globally to capitalize on growing higher education markets as well as position itself for the continuing trend of the international student mobility with higher education as Australia’s largest non-mining export industry.

GSA has led the evolution of the student accommodation sector in Australia over the past 8 years to the point that it is now recognized as an exciting emerging institutional asset-grade real estate asset which is supported by attractive demand and supply fundamentals. The chronic supply demand imbalance in the student accommodation sector in Australia will continue to worsen over the next 10 years as the government targets 1 million international students by 2025. In Australia’s key university cities, there is a significant undersupply of purpose built student accommodation representing only 10% of the total student accommodation market, despite an increasing number of operators entering the market.

Simon Loveridge, Managing Director, GSA Group Asia Pacific commented: “We are delighted to announce the continued growth of our Asia Pacific business with the launch of our new Australian business. The UK student accommodation market saw record transaction levels last year with over US$7bn of assets transacted in the sector. We see that Australia has all of the market fundamentals to develop into a more institutional grade asset class given the world leading universities, real estate market and the large and growing international student population.

We will bring GSA’s global platform, systems and operations into the market and deliver a business of scale across Australia.”

Ends

For media enquiries please contact:

Carolyn Grant: Avviso PR: + 61 (0) 293687277 + 61 (0)407898727 carolyng@avviso.com.au or Tabitha Aldrich-Smith: GSA Group Press Office taldrichsmith@gsa-gp.com

About GSA Group

GSA is not simply in the student accommodation sector, GSA created it. For GSA, accommodation is not simply about a physical place to live, but rather about a better way to live.

GSA Group is the first truly global leader in student accommodation. GSA provides communities where students live, in the best real estate and university markets.

The GSA management team, lead by its founder Nicholas Porter, pioneered the purpose built student accommodation industry for nearly 25 years, creating industry standards such as end-user research, university guarantees and partnerships, standard operating processes, space saving room layouts, online bookings, student integration and customer service levels.

Nicholas Porter founded London and Australia’s Urbanest student accommodation brand and previously The UNITE Group plc which he grew to become a FTSE 250 company. The UK asset class attracts global investment and is now estimated to be worth over $30 billion. Counter to recessionary pressures, the global student accommodation market is in growth and there are also many other rapidly expanding markets, each underpinned by government policies to increase participation in higher education.

Having created 60,000 study bedrooms across 44 markets in 8 countries worth over US$7.5bn, GSA is inspired by the business model of the global hotel industry to expand and improve the scale, reach and service levels associated with student accommodation.

GSA has expanded from Europe and the Middle East into Asia and has operations in Sydney, Tokyo, London, Dubai, Hong Kong and Beijing.