Tadhamon Capital, a Bahrain-based Islamic investment company, has announced its successful exit from Paris Gardens - its first investment in a Central London student accommodation property.

The sale of the 253-bed property, which was developed in a joint venture with McLaren Property in July 2012, saw investors of Tadhamon Capital achieve more than 70 per cent return on their invested capital within a 30-month period, said a statement from the company.
 
The acquisition of Paris Garden formed part of the Tadhamon Capital & Apache Capital Partners' (TC-AC) managed Social Infrastructure Investment Platform with a current gross assets under management (AUM) of over £350 million ($523 million).

Since completion in the summer of 2013, the property was fully let and has generated a stable net income of eight per cent to investors. The sale of the property generated an IRR (internal rate of return) in excess of 25 per cent, significantly higher than the original projected returns of 16.5 per cent IRR.
 
Simultaneously, in an off-market transaction with Apache Capital, Tadhamon Capital has entered into a JV agreement for the development of a new, high-quality student accommodation, located at the centre of Kingston-Upon-Thames (South London).

The project’s gross development value is in excess of £45 million ($67.2 million) with projected returns targeted to exceed 15 per cent IRR over a five-year investment period.

The property will include 210 elegant studio rooms of varying sizes and a 4,835 sq ft of commercial space.  
 
Hesham Al Gassab, the executive director of investments, said: "Tadhamon Capital has been investing in the UK real estate market since its inception in 2009 and has developed a strong track record in the Social Infrastructure Platform which focuses on investing in student accommodation, schools, care homes, and social housing units."

Today this platform has more than £350 million of assets under management. Student accommodation remains a particular focus of this platform, he noted.

"Currently, we have more than 1,500 beds across London, Cambridge, Ipswich and Kingston, which continue to deliver attractive dividend yield levels and also achieving solid capital gains," noted Al Gassab.
 
Tadhamon Capital, he said, was looking to build on its knowledge and expertise gained from its social infrastructure investing in UK residential market where it continues to see great opportunities both the prime Central London and Greater London locations.

The company aims, over the next year, to increase its our assets under management in the UK to more than £500 million ($748 million), he added.
 
CEO Ahmed Sultan said: "We are delighted to announce both the completion of another successful exit and investment in the UK market. Over the past year, we have worked hard to both ensure we were positioned to achieve maximum value from our current investments as well as continuing to look to identify new opportunities to deploy capital and create opportunities for Tadhamon Capital and our investors."

"We have a strong pipeline of transactions which we are evaluating and look to build our current portfolio of assets across the GCC, UK, and Turkey whilst also looking to expand into the US market and potentially parts of Mena region," he added.-TradeArabia News Service