Man Group to plough £400m into affordable housing

The world’s largest listed fund manager Man Group has raised the first part of a targeted £400m to invest in building 3,500 new homes, in a deal supported by housing quango Homes England.

The firm, working through its Global Private Markets business, set up its Community Housing Fund last year. It said it has now closed its first fund raise, securing cash from a raft of investors including £20m from Homes England. 

The aim of the fund is to meet social and environmental outcomes for investors, by accelerating the delivery of new affordable homes in high demand parts of the UK.

Man Group has already started deploying the fund, with the firm before Christmas putting £31m into a 227-home scheme by modular housebuilder Ilke Homes, as well as making other investments in Lewes and Alconbury Weald.

Alongside Homes England, other backers of the fund include impact investors Big Society Capital and the Schroder BSC Social Impact Trust, as well as the local government pension schemes for Swansea and Strathclyde.

The business said it is targeting the creation of a £400m fund to build 3,500 homes but did not say exactly how much it has raised to date.

Man said it already had signed deals to fund schemes totalling 363 homes and had built its pipeline of projects to 2,000 homes.

The news is the latest sign of increased institutional investor interest in building new homes, following on from a raft of investments by L&G, the creation of for-profit social landlord Sage Partnerships by Blackstone in 2018, and the £75m Goldman Sachs investment in modular housebuilder TopHat.

Shamez Alibhai, head of community housing, at Man GPM (pictured), said the closing of its initial fund-raising was an exciting milestone for its Community Housing strategy.

He said: “Increasing the amount of socially responsible capital in the affordable housing space is good for communities and the people who live and work locally, but also for investors who are committed to achieving demonstrable returns and creating positive social and environmental change.”

Globally the 1,400-strong Man Group manages investments of more than $123bn on behalf of its clients.