Warburg-goldman JV to ramp up student housing biz

Student housing owner and operator Good Host Spaces plans to grow its bed strength by three times in the next two years. Recently, Us-based private equity fund manager Warburg Pincus bought out the stake in the company from HDFC.

The Goldman Sachs-backed company now has 18,000 beds across its tie ups with Manipal University, OP Jindal Global University and Shoolini University. It plans to take the figure to 50,000 beds in the next two years, said Nimesh Grover, chief executive at Good Host spaces. “We have some term sheets. We have started scaling up the business,” Grover said.

Though the company had planned to have 25,000 beds by 2021 and 75,000 in 18 months from mid-2019, it could not reach the target due to the pandemic. “We could not do due diligence for acquisitions owing to the lockdown,” he said.

However, now the firm is looking to scale up fast, he said, “We are going aggressive from a business development perspective. Colleges are willing to talk to us, given the work we have done,” he said. However, he did not disclose the names of colleges/universities it is in talks with. While Warburg has 31 per cent stake now, it will take it to 50 per cent over a period of time. HDFC sold 24.48 per cent stake in Good Host for ~232.81 crore.

“We have worked on upgrading our assets and giving incremental safety as a lot of students come in the second half of the year,” he said. He added that it has invested in training students and staff on safe living in their facilities.

For instance, it made doctors available all days in a week, counsellors were trained and Covid testing facilities were provided, among other measures. He said Good Host is scaling up its acquisitions team. It has appointed a chief investment officer and will have a team of eight in acquisition by July this year.