OAK BROOK, ILL. — UHC Acquisition Sub LLC has agreed to purchase University House Communities Group Inc., InvenTrust Properties Corp.’s student housing platform, for $1.4 billion. UHC is a subsidiary of a joint venture between Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, GIC and Scion Communities Investors LLC.
InvenTrust created University House Communities in 2007 as a development, acquisition and management firm that focuses on student housing communities in university markets across the United States. The Dallas-based firm has communities in 15 states, including Florida, Oregon, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Alabama, California and Arizona.
The company decided to divest the asset after refocusing its core retail business. The Oak Brook, Ill.-based company owns 128 multi-tenant retail properties in 24 states, as of Sept. 30, 2015. Its retail portfolio contains a total of 19 million square feet.
“The sale of University House marks the culmination of our portfolio evolution strategy to focus our energies and investment capital into our multi-tenant retail platform,” says Thomas McGuinness, InvenTrust’s CEO and president. “While University House has been a valuable component of InvenTrust’s portfolio, we are very excited about this transaction, which represents the conclusion of a robust evaluation process to maximize the value we receive for the platform.”
“Following this important step and the recently announced spin-off of our non-core portfolio, we remain committed to our strategy of refining and tailoring our pure-play retail platform,” he added.
The transaction is expected to close in mid-2016, subject to closing conditions. InvenTrust plans to “explore all options” in terms of what it will do with the net proceeds from the University House transaction.
Citigroup and JP Morgan acted as financial advisors to InvenTrust, while Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and Hunton & Williams LLP served as legal counsel.