Blue Sky Private Real Estate to for $1 billion student accommodation venture with Goldman Sachs

Leading global investment firm Goldman Sachs has teamed up with Blue Sky Private Real Estate to launch a joint $1 billion student accommodation.

The two companies are aiming to build a portfolio of between 5,000 and 10,000 student accommodation beds across Australia and New Zealand over the next few years.

Blue Sky Private Real Estate have already grown the student accommodation development pipeline to more than 3,000 beds across the country since the formulated the investment strategy in 2014.

In a sector which has been heavily undersupplied in relation the the US and UK, head of investing for Blue Sky Private Real Estate Adam Vaggelas said the partnership was a key milestone in the company's strategy.

“Education is Australia’s largest non-resource export industry, worth in excess of $18 billion per annum and growing," he said.

"The ability to scale further into this domestic thematic, in part due to region’s proximity to a rapidly expanding Asian middle class, is a key focus for the partnership."

The Blue Sky partnership is Goldman Sachs’ entry into the Australian student market, however the global investment firm has been active in the European student market for a number of years.

Earlier this year Goldman Sachs announced a £2 billion joint venture to form the Vero Group consisting of approximately 600 staff managing almost 25,000 student beds across the UK.

Entities owned by Goldman Sachs and funds managed by Blue Sky will each own 50 per cent of future projects developed under the Australian joint venture.