South Korea’s National Pension Service invests $700m in student accommodation giant Scape Australia

South Korea’s National Pension Service has deepened its partnership with Scape Australia, investing $700m to expand student housing and rental projects across Asia-Pacific.

Students at Scape accommodation in Brisbane. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen/The Australian

A South Korean pension fund giant will inject $700m into the country’s largest student accommodation company, Scape Australia, as part of a new global strategic partnership.

The latest equity commitment extends a relationship between the pair which began in 2020 when South Korea’s National Pension Service, one of the world’s largest pension funds, invested in Scape’s Purpose Built Student Accommodation (PBSA) program.

Funds from the latest deal will go into living sector projects – including PBSA and Build-to-Rent – operated under a separate management company, Rent-to-Live Co, created by Scape principals in 2023.

Scape will also open an office in South Korea as part of its expansion into the residential-for-rent sector in the Asia Pacific region.

“Establishing our South Korea office will resource our commitment with our Korean capital partners to lay strong foundations for growing across Asia”, said Stephen Gaitanos, CEO of Scape Australia & Rent-to-Live Co.

Students at Scape accommodation in Sydney. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

“We are privileged to be working with NPS to grow institutional investment in the residential-for-rent sectors in the Asia-Pacific”.

Scape, established in 2014, has about 19,000 bedrooms across 38 buildings in Adelaide, Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne and a further 4000 bedrooms across 8 assets in the development pipeline in Australia. Rent-to-Live has more than 1200 apartments in development in Sydney. The two companies combined have $13bn of assets under management on behalf of its global institutional capital partners.

NPS portfolio manager Gyumin Im said the funds management giant was pleased to strengthen its relationship with Scape through a bespoke structure.

“With Scape Australia’s extensive experience and expertise, together with their long-term like-minded investors base, we believe that Scape Australia will continue to be the leading living platform in Asia at a global scale,” he said.