EDINBURGH-based Sigma Capital is confident of hitting its target of creating 10,000 new homes in regeneration areas over the next six or seven years, chief executive Graham Barnet has said.
The former venture capital group's groundbreaking initiative to build a large-scale portfolio of private rented homes in regeneration zones of English cities has finally got under way, Sigma said yesterday. It has secured debt funding of up to £67m from Barclays, adding to £47m of equity from Gatehouse Bank to fund the 927 homes on 10 sites in Salford and four in Liverpool.
Earlier this month Sigma announced a long-term partnership to offer Grainger, the UK's largest listed residential property owner, an exclusive option to acquire other development opportunities of 100 units or more sourced by Sigma.
Mr Barnet said: "It is a geared structure so the debt piece is a big element of it. As far as we are aware no-one has done this at this level in one unified portfolio before so doing it for the first time is not easy."
But he added: "We should be able to do one of these a year quite comfortably.
"The partnership we announced with Grainger gives us another option, which will be done on a site-by-site basis on much bigger sites. Gatehouse is keen on smaller quick turn-round sites."
Mr Barnet said the agreement on Sigma's management fees and share of net disposal profits had remained pleasingly "stable".
Sigma was up 2.5p at 70p.
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