By Rupert Hargreaves
The London-listed real estate investment trust Assura and the Universities Superannuation Scheme Limited (USS) have agreed to invest £250m in a 20:80 joint venture to support investment in essential NHS infrastructure.
In an announcement published this morning, Assura, the UK’s leading specialist healthcare property investor and developer, said it would take the 20 per cent stake and “act as property and asset manager, receiving asset management fees linked to the valuation of the portfolio.”
The real estate investment trust added that it would work with the £75bn USS pension scheme to invest in key buildings that will help the NHS meet its long-term growth and treatment targets – primarily NHS community healthcare buildings,
The parties said the joint venture would last for 20 years and would be seeded with an initial agreed portfolio of seven assets (£107m), transferred from Assura’s existing portfolio. Its initial target is £250m in assets, with scope to grow to £400m “thereafter.”
The announcement said the portfolio targeted: “will focus exclusively on assets let directly to NHS or GP tenants with rents linked to inflation or with fixed uplifts.”
Separately, Assura also announced its results for the year ended 31 March 2024.
Its passing rent roll of properties, primarily let to the NHS, increased five per cent to £150.6m and net rental income rose four per cent to £143.3m.
Overall, the group reported an IFRS loss before tax of £28.7m, which reflected a four per cent like-for-like valuation decline.
The value of Assura’s NHS investment portfolio was £2.7bn at the end of the period, compared to £2.74bn at the end of the prior year.
The company increased its quarterly dividend by 2.4 per cent to 0.84p or 3.36p per share annualised.
Jonathan Murphy, Assura’s CEO, said: “We have continued our strong track record of investing with capital discipline. We made one acquisition in Ireland and have closely monitored our on-site developments to deliver them on budget.
“We celebrated our 100th development completion of Prestbury Medical Centre in Wolverhampton, with a total of five completions (£72m) during the year that also included schemes for private operators such as a state-of-the-art day case hospital in Kettering and a cancer care facility in Guildford as well as our first development completion in Ireland: Kilbeggan Medical Centre.”
Murphy added: “These diverse schemes, alongside the contribution from portfolio management, enabled us to deliver four per cent growth in net rental income to £143.3m, and our passing rent roll stands at £150.6m, five per cent higher than 12 months ago.”
