Fund manager Thriving Investments has secured a further £100m of equity from Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) to help it grow its PRS portfolio to over 2,000 homes by the end of 2024.
Thriving Investments launched its PRS strategy Picture Living in 2018 and has since amassed a portfolio of circa 1,800 single- and multi-family homes in the UK.
The extra equity boost from the major UK pension scheme aims to speed up Thriving Investments’ target of delivering 20,000 homes over the next 10 years.
“This commitment extends our partnership with one of the UK’s largest pension schemes and reinforces our strategy to date as a differentiated fund manager with a social conscience, delivering much needed single- and multi-family home-led communities across the UK,” said Jamie Younger, fund manager at Picture Living.
“Solving the UK’s rental crisis has become an issue of national importance and one where it has become increasingly apparent that the solution to delivering homes at the scale and pace required lies with institutional capital and fund managers.
“Our focus now is to deploy the capital into new opportunities, leveraging our strong housebuilder relationships to grow the portfolio to over 2,000 homes.”
Alex Turner, head of property at USS, added: “We continue to increase our exposure to asset types which provide resilient and stable cash flows that align with the long-term pension promises we make to our members, plus benefit from strong macro tailwinds in the sector.
“Picture Living complements our other investments in the living sector, including PBSA, equity release, shared ownership, and residential development lending.”
In 2023, Picture Living saw around £45m of original capital committed to forward fund over 100 single-family homes for rent across four schemes in London and the South East.
Picture Living’s focus is on schemes or portfolios of 30 to 80-plus homes.
Property management business Touchstone runs the current portfolio on a day-to-day basis.
