Bristol-headquartered law firm Burges Salmon has advised Ahli United Bank UK (AUB UK) on the sale of its entire student accommodation portfolio in a £271m deal with the Unite UK Student Accommodation Fund (USAF).
AUB’s UK Student Accommodation Fund was set-up as a Sharia-compliant vehicle and in 2011 bought its first properties in central London Leeds for approximately £15m.
The fund then acquired prime assets in leading university cities, taking the portfolio to 2,100 bedrooms in eight properties.
The Burges Salmon team, led by real estate partner Rick Read, brought together lawyers from the its corporate, banking, tax, planning, construction and engineering teams to act for the fund, an existing client. 
Rick Read, pictured, said: “We are pleased to have been able to support AUB UK Student Accommodation Fund’s growth over the past few years. Our team has particular expertise in funding and developing student accommodation projects and in Islamic finance.
“This enabled us to deliver a top quality service to our client as it grew the portfolio and to guide the client through all it needed to do to ensure the sale was delivered successfully.”
USAF, which is managed by Bristol-based student accommodation group Unite, is the largest specialist student accommodation vehicle in the UK. The deal with AUB UK will complete on June 30 and will increase USAF’s property portfolio value by 16% to £1.91bn, taking it to 26,920 beds in 76 properties across 25 UK towns and cities.
