BNP provides €140m finance to expand Uxco’s Paris PBSA

Uxco Group, which operates accommodation for students and young professionals in France, has secured a €140 million financing package from BNP Paribas.

Uxco, which is owned by funds managed by Brookfield, will use the facility to refinance existing debt and to finance the acquisition of a development site next to its existing ECLA student asset at Massy-Palaiseau in the Paris suburbs near Orly Airport.

The new site will be used to develop a 550-bed extension to the current nine-storey, 1,300 bed building. Uxco’s sister company Océanis will develop the new facility. The combined residence will be the largest PBSA asset in continental Europe and will open its doors at the start of the academic year commencing in September 2023.

Uxco plans to have invested more than €1 billion in purposed built student accommodation by 2023 and the company aims to have expanded to 18,000 beds in France by 2025, from 7,500 in October 2021.

Alban Tézenas du Montcel, director within the real estate capital markets team of BNP Paribas, said: “After three years in operation, the [Uxco] management has demonstrated their ability to drive the sustainability of the ECLA model and grow the company, particularly through new acquisitions.”