Amro Valencia Puerto attracts €19.5m Fiera development loan

In partnership with IPIM (IP Investment Management) and Heed Capital, we have secured development financing for our 221-bed PBSA development in Valencia with a €19.15m, 3-year development facility funded by Fiera’s European Real Estate Debt Fund.

This is the second loan facility extended between Fiera and Amro, following the completion of another prior development loan for our Alicante PBSA project in March 2024.

Amro Valencia Puerto is our second PBSA scheme in Valencia and tenth in Iberia, after making our first investment in 2012. The €30.0m GDV development, where construction commenced in April of this year and will complete in December 2025, will be one of the most energy-efficient PBSA projects in the country.

Amro Valencia Puerto is designed to reduce whole-life carbon emissions at the embodied carbon and operational phases as part of Amro’s net zero strategy. Integrated passive strategies will be adopted at the fully-electrified development, with targeted certifications in recognition of its best-in-class ESG credentials including BREEAM Outstanding, EPC A++, Fitwel 3 Star and Platinum WiredScore – the highest possible standards.

For IPIM and Heed, this project represents the €25m Iberian Student Living Fund’s initial foray into the coveted Valencia student market and the fund’s second investment within Iberia. The first investment was Amro’s 151-bed student housing scheme in Porto, Portugal, also built to BREEAM Outstanding, which welcomed its first residents in January 2024 and reached 95% leased earlier this month.

The building will be operated by our student housing operating platform Amro Estudiantes and is located less than 15 minutes from The University of Valencia by public transport, where there are over 55,000 students. A further five universities are reachable in 30 minutes via public transport.

Amro co-founder and CEO Raj Kotecha, said: “Our ESG-focused strategy continues to attract the highest quality global lenders and we’re pleased to be working with Fiera Capital again to bring this BREEAM Outstanding new PBSA project to fruition. Demand for dedicated student accommodation in Valencia is extremely strong and we have a proven track record of delivering best-in-class PBSA assets in this exciting and vibrant city.”

Richard Howe, Co-Head of Fiera’s European Real Estate Debt business, commented: “We are delighted to continue our relationship with Amro, through which we are lending to a market-leading sponsor and best-in-class real estate with the strongest ESG credentials. The growing weight of institutional capital in the Spanish PBSA market speaks to its attractive underlying fundamentals, where there is a structural undersupply of professionally managed and contemporary student housing against a backdrop of a growing student population, from a domestic and international standpoint.”