London, United Kingdom, December 10, 2025 — Harrison Street Asset Management (“HSAM”), a leading global investment management firm with over $108 billion in assets under management in highly differentiated alternative assets across infrastructure, real estate and credit strategies, today announced the sale of a student housing portfolio in the United Kingdom (“UK”). The portfolio comprises 1,616 beds across six properties located in top university cities, including London, Birmingham, Belfast, Leicester, Edinburgh, and Cardiff, and was acquired by AustralianSuper.
The assets—The Aspen, Aster House, Huxley Studios, Wick Park, Howard Gardens, and Compass—are strategically located near leading universities across the UK. All properties were built between 2020-2023, and feature a variety of modern amenities such as gyms, courtyard terraces, coffee bars, study lounges, and social spaces designed to meet the expectations of today’s students.
“Over the last decade, we have been a pioneer in European alternative real estate, and we are pleased to see institutional investors increasingly rotate towards our sectors of focus,” said Paul Bashir, CEO-Europe at Harrison Street Asset Management. “We believe this sale demonstrates the continued global interest in high-quality, purpose-built student housing and underscores our ability to deliver institutional portfolios at scale. We’re proud of the platform we’ve built in Europe and remain committed to identifying opportunities that create value for our investors across market cycles.”
“We feel this transaction reflects the strong fundamentals of the UK student housing market,” noted Bashir. “Our ability to aggregate, enhance and strategically exit portfolios in top-tier university cities continues to be a key differentiator. As the UK student housing sector continues to expand, we expect our early-mover advantage and deep sector expertise to position us to identify, develop, and operate high-quality student accommodations that meet the evolving needs of students.”
“AustralianSuper is pleased to have acquired this portfolio of assets. This acquisition executes on the strategy of our new UK Living platform to scale with quality homes for rent, anchored to high demand university locations, with the opportunity to grow income and deliver for members over the long term,” said Vicky Stanley, Senior Investment Director for Real Assets, AustralianSuper.
Harrison Street Asset Management is a leader in the purpose-built student housing market and one of the largest private owners of student housing globally. HSAM has been an active investor in the European student housing market since 2015, and the firm has invested approximately €2.8 billion in European student accommodation real estate, with a portfolio of 63 student housing properties totaling over 21,600 beds across the UK, Ireland, Spain, Italy, Germany and France. Since inception, the firm has invested over $24 billion across 421 student housing properties, totaling more than 229,000 beds throughout Europe and North America.
About Harrison Street Asset Management
Harrison Street Asset Management is a leading global alternative investment management firm with over $108 billion in assets under management through highly differentiated assets across real estate, infrastructure, and credit strategies. Headquartered in Chicago, Toronto and London with over 600 employees in offices across North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East, the firm offers innovative solutions across a variety of closed-end, open-end and specialized vehicles on behalf of 1,200+ institutional and over 300+ Registered Investment Advisors.1
1 HSAM data and descriptions of HSAM’s business are generally comprised of the aggregated data and business activities of investment advisors that are owned in whole or in part by HSAM. Assets under management (“AUM”) reflects the AUM for the investment advisory and asset management clients of such investment advisors and is inclusive of the regulatory AUM of such investment advisors that is reported in their respective Form ADVs.
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