Scion to Acquire Student Quarters’ $1.5B Operating Platform
The deal will add 29 student housing assets with nearly 13,000 beds to The Scion Group’s national platform.
The Scion Group is acquiring the operating business of Student Quarters, an Atlanta-based student housing owner with interests in approximately $1.5 billion of student housing assets across the U.S. SQ’s current portfolio is comprised of 29 assets totaling nearly 13,000 beds at 21 campuses. The deal, announced this morning, is expected to close in the third quarter.
It’s Scion’s second major student housing transaction within weeks and will expand the firm’s national platform to 190 communities with nearly 118,000 bedrooms across 94 leading university markets.
The sale price was not disclosed. Scion plans to fund the transaction from its own balance sheet without any third-party capital investors or financing.
A seamless integration
Following the closing, Scion will retain SQ’s Atlanta office and integrate the platform into its national operations. The executive team, including Student Quarters CEO Andy Feinour, will be joining Scion on a transitional basis to ensure a smooth integration of the company’s properties, investors and overall operations, according to officials from both firms.
The transaction will combine SQ’s established operating platform and presence in high-demand university markets with Scion’s national scale, technology infrastructure and centralized operating capabilities.
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The SG portfolio has 77 percent market overlap with Scion’s existing footprint. The SG portfolio’s top markets include Mississippi State University, University of Tennessee, Texas A&M University, University of Arkansas, Michigan State University and Georgia Tech.
Properties in the portfolio include 200 Edgewood in Atlanta, near Georgia State University, Latitude in Champaign, Ill., near the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, Locale Fayetteville serving the University of Arkansas, Locale Tallahassee near the University of Florida, Lofts on 8th in Tempe, Ariz., near Arizona State University and Vue on Walnut in Springfield, Mo., serving Missouri State University.
Decade of growth
The SG deal comes about three weeks after a joint venture between Scion and an Ares Real Estate Fund acquired a 12-property, 7,578-bed student housing portfolio from Harrison Street Asset Management for $910 million. That deal marked the largest transaction for the student housing asset class this year. The portfolio’s assets are located across 10 states and serve 12 universities, including Arizona State University, Auburn University, University of Florida, the University of Notre Dame, The Ohio State University and James Madison University.
The company has been growing rapidly over the past decade. Since 2016, Scion has deployed approximately $10.2 billion, including more than $5 billion over the last two years, according to CEO Robert Bronstein. The firm expects the SG transaction to be the first of several similar opportunities to expand its platform.
