Cedar Pacific sole bidder for $2bn Campus Living, Greenhill tapped

The UniLodge South Bank student accommodation complex in Brisbane.

Cedar Pacific – the owner of the country’s largest student accommodation provider UniLodge – is believed to the sole suitor for the entire $2bn Campus Living Villages business that has been up for sale through Goldman Sachs.

Student accommodation business Campus Living was placed up for sale last year, but the process was paused over the summer break when offers did not meet expectations.

Now DataRoom understands that Ceda Pacific, advised by Greenhill, is weighing a purchase and is the only group interested in acquiring the company in one line.

Other suitors are from Europe or Australia, and are only interested in buying Campus Living’s Australia business or UK division, but not all of the group.

It means that the auction effectively will involve Cedar Pacific bidding against itself.

Campus Living had initially planned to sell the business as a whole. But once bids come in it may opt for a break-up, selling off parts of the business to groups making the best offers.

Founded by Pamoja Capital, Cedar Pacific is Queensland based and entered the build-to-rent market in 2021 with 475 Brisbane apartments.

UniLodge, which it owns, is the largest provider of student accommodation in Australia ahead of Scape and Iglu.

Campus Living, run by former Stockland executive John Schroder, operates university accommodation in Australia, New Zealand, Britain and the US, and has 27,100 beds across 46 villages.

Each country has a substantial share.

Most of the appeal for the Campus Living business was in the British and Australian arms, while the US division was less attractive, being sub-scale and in more regional areas.

Campus Living’s Australian assets are spread along the east coast – headlined by the University of Sydney, University of NSW, Griffith University and RMIT, and Edith Cowan and Murdoch universities in the west.

It was initially touted for a listing on the Australian Securities Exchange and UBS was appointed. Attempts were made by the owners – Hostplus, REST, Equip Super and NGS Super – to sell the company in 2017 for $2bn.

The sale comes as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese plans to introduce a cap of 270,000 on international students in Australia.

This has been met with resistance by opposition leader Peter Dutton, who is arguing for deeper cuts to address the country’s housing shortage.

Among those that were thought to have bid for all or parts of the company were Dutch pension fund PGGM, while Plenary took an early look but opted to not proceed.

Previously, entities like Macquarie Group-backed Greystar, Morrison & Co and Singapore investors like Mapletree were seen as logical candidates to consider a purchase.

The sale process, which was run by Goldman Sachs, earlier excluded industry rivals, with infrastructure funds being the main focus.

Aveo

Meanwhile, final bids for retirement village operator Aveo are due in April, say sources, with Scape, Charter Hall and Canadian pension fund OMERS – which owns Oxford Properties – all believed to be still in the competition.

Earlier offers were made several weeks ago.

The arrival of top executives from the Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC in Sydney in recent days has fuelled speculation it may be also be a bidder for Aveo, although market sources do not believe it is in the mix as of yet.

The $3bn business with 86 retirement facilities is owned by Brookfield and up for sale through Morgan Stanley and Barrenjoey.