The Carlyle Group Sells London Based Pure Student Living to LetterOne Treasury Services for £532 million

London -Global alternative asset manager, The Carlyle Group (NASDAQ: CG) announces that it has sold Pure Student Living, London’s premier purpose built student accommodation business, to LetterOne Treasury Services for a total consideration of £532 million.

Pure Student Living comprises 2,170 rooms across five prime central London sites.  Four of the assets, located at Highbury, Hammersmith, Bankside and City, are fully operational while the fifth facility at Whitechapel, will deliver a further 417 rooms when it completes in August 2015.

Carlyle entered the London student accommodation market in 2010 when it acquired the Highbury site on behalf of its third pan-European real estate fund, Carlyle European Real Estate Partners III, and it has subsequently grown Pure Student Living into one of the capital’s foremost student housing portfolios.

The transaction has been structured to complete in two phases with the first comprising the acquisition of the four operational assets, with the deal to fully complete when Pure Whitechapel is delivered in Summer 2015.

The portfolio has been managed by Generation Estates, a specialist developer and operator that will be retained to manage the construction works at Whitechapel.

Carlyle remains committed to student housing as a long term institutional asset class and initially invested in a student accommodation business in the Netherlands in 2009. Carlyle now has over 1,700 rooms operating in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague, which are managed under The Student Hotel brand.

Commenting on the transaction, Mark Harris, Managing Director at The Carlyle Group, said:  “Having first entered the London student accommodation market over five years ago at a time when there was little equity, debt or appetite for development, we have subsequently built Pure into one of London’s foremost student living portfolios.  The sale of this high quality portfolio, against a far more robust and certain economic backdrop, represents a successful result for this investment.”

Carlyle’s advisors for the transaction were BLP and JLL Corporate Finance.

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For further information:

FTI Consulting Inc – for The Carlyle Group
Richard Sunderland/Clare Glynn
T. +44 (0)20 3727 1000                                                                                        
carlyle@fticonsulting.com

About The Carlyle Group
The Carlyle Group (NASDAQ: CG) is a global alternative asset manager with $194 billion of assets under management across 128 funds and 142 fund of funds vehicles as of December 31, 2014. Carlyle's purpose is to invest wisely and create value on behalf of its investors, many of whom are public pensions. Carlyle invests across four segments – Corporate Private Equity, Real Assets, Global Market Strategies and Investment Solutions – in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, the Middle East, North America and South America. Carlyle has expertise in various industries, including: aerospace, defense & government services, consumer & retail, energy, financial services, healthcare, industrial, real estate, technology & business services, telecommunications & media and transportation. The Carlyle Group employs more than 1,650 people in 40 offices across six continents.

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