Squire Patton Boggs has advised Octopus Real Estate on the structuring and formation of Octopus Affordable Housing Fund, a private real estate investment trust targeting £1 billion of investor commitments to accelerate the delivery of high-quality and genuinely affordable homes across the UK.
The initial capital will enable more than 500 affordable family and older persons homes to be built in areas across the UK and is the first step towards the fund’s overall target of funding the delivery of 5,000 homes over the next few years.
The fund provides co-investment opportunities for local authorities, LGPS, and other locally interested investors, increasing the total capital available for affordable housing but also driving alignment around the delivery of schemes in their local areas.
The team advising Octopus was led by head of Funds and relationship partner Steven Ward, and included Funds associate Anjuli Chatterjee, Tax partner Mark Simpson, Tax associate Thomas Barr and Corporate partner Robert Bray.
Octopus Real Estate has been a client of the Squire Patton Boggs funds team since its inception. The team has previously acted for Octopus Real Estate on a number of transactions, including the fundraising of Octopus Healthcare Fund and the sponsor-led secondary transactions of Octopus Programmatic Venture and Octopus Healthfund II.
Steven Ward, head of Funds at Squire Patton Boggs for EMEA, said, "we are delighted to have acted for our longstanding client Octopus Real Estate again on this new, important mandate. The fund further reinforces Octopus' reputation as a ‘best in class’ manager of socially impactful real estate projects and we were thrilled to support the team."
Jack Burnham, Head of Affordable Housing, Octopus Real Estate, commented: “The team at Squire Patton Boggs provided us with excellent guidance that was invaluable in helping Octopus form our Affordable Housing Fund. We’re delighted to have launched this new strategy and look forward to continuing to work with Squire Patton Boggs as the Fund grows.”
The firm’s role on the fundraising follows a number of other recent fund formation mandates by the team in the impact funds space.