Signal Capital Partners, Griffin Capital Partners and Echo Investment to launch new student housing platform in Poland

Signal Capital Partners, Griffin Capital Partners and Echo Investment are launching a new student housing platform to create a market-leading player in the dynamically growing polish student housing sector.

Signal Capital Partners, a multi-euro-billion UK-based private asset management firm focusing on European corporate and real estate special situations investments, along with Griffin Capital Partners, the largest privately-owned investment and asset manager in private equity and real estate in CEE, and Echo Investment S.A, the largest Polish development company, will, subject to anti-monopoly clearance, launch a new student housing platform.

The new joint venture is aiming to develop, as a first step, an operating portfolio of 5,000 purpose-built, modern, energy efficient student beds across key academic cities in Poland over the next three to five years. The joint venture will consist of a 70% stake held by a partnership with Signal Capital as the majority shareholder and Griffin Capital Partners. The remaining 30% will be held by Echo Investment. Griffin Capital Partners shall act as the investment and asset manager while Echo Investment will act as the development manager of the venture.

“Poland has over 1.2 million students, including over 100,000 international students, making it one of the largest student markets in Europe. There is a massive shortage of modern private PBSAs in Poland, with bed provisions for full-time students in private and modern PBSAs amounting to only 1.6%, which is 5-10 times lower than in Western European cities. This presents a significant opportunity for the new student housing platform to meet the growing demand.” – Colman McCarthy, Partner, Real Estate Investments at Signal Capital.

The full press release is available here