Student housing helps Quintain

The company pre-sold a student housing block under construction to Keystone & Partners, receiving £14.5m upfront, with a further £38.5m due when the works are complete. It has also sold an ageing hotel for £15m. That cash will relieve some of the upward pressure on gearing as construction works continue at Wembley and elsewhere. Quintain is building a second student housing block in Shoreditch for its 50/50 joint venture with the Wellcome Trust. The iQ Property Partnership estate of 4,500 student rooms boasts 99 per cent occupancy rates and healthy 4.3 per cent annual rental growth, year on year, which resulted in a £6.9m valuation uplift for the period. This offset a slight dip in Wembley valuations, so Quintain's net asset value (NAV) was essentially flat.

The developer is also building a Hilton hotel at Wembley that should be ready just in time for next year's Olympic Games. It has not yet started its proposed retail scheme, London Designer Outlet, but lost its joint venture partner over the period. But, with 39 per cent of the space pre-let, including to GAP and Nike as 'anchor' tenants, finance chief Rebecca Worthington says it will go ahead anyway.