The venture capital fund manager Plenium Partners reinforces its presence in university residences. Through an auction, it acquired the Sant Jordi residence hall, owned by the University of Barcelona (UB), for 24.56 million euros. This amount is 29% above the tender price, which was 19 million.
Plenium Partners carried out this operation through one of its subsidiaries, Green Flake. The manager is specialized in renewable energies, although in 2018 it diversified its strategy with the launch of a fund dedicated to student residences.
The purchase will be effective from August. It will be then when the manager takes charge of this asset, which Fornells Servicios Empresariales also opted for –which offered 19.05 million– and Morlin Properties, which put 25.5 million on the table. The sole administrator of the latter is Juan Velayos, who was CEO of the promoter Neinor Homes between 2015 and 2019.
The UB is the university with the most students in Catalonia and is also the only one in the community that has halls of residence, a total of three. In 2018, after receiving the endorsement of the Generalitat, it decided to get rid of one of them, the Sant Jordi, located in the Sarrià neighborhood, since between 30% and 40% of its users were enrolled in other universities. According to the UB, with two facilities of this type it already has enough to meet demand.
The Colegio Mayor Sant Jordi opened in 1953 and since 1977 it has been managed by the UB. In August 2006 it moved to its current location, a 1,600 square meter building with 128 rooms next to the old RCD Espanol stadium.
The amount to be paid by Plenium does not include taxes or other expenses. The UB will receive three payments, and the first of them, which will be paid throughout this year, amounts to nine million. The rest will be carried out between 2023 and 2024, according to sources from the institution.
With these revenues, the UB wants to finance investments that it has not been able to undertake after ten years of cutbacks in public universities.
