14/05/2019 by Sekisui House

Sekisui House has announced it will form partnership with Homes England, the new housing delivery organisation, and Urban Splash, a general real estate company based in Manchester, and move into the UK housing market. Aiming to deliver thousands of new homes across England, they will contribute to the revitalization of the UK market with know-how grown through 60 years experience in Japan and partnership with the two companies.

The £90m deal, which has been facilitated by lead advisor JLL, comprises a total new investment of £55m into regeneration company Urban Splashʼs ʻHouseʼ development business. This provides a significant boost to the UKʼs modular housing industry and will help to speed up production of much needed new homes.
Sekisui House have invested £22m of new equity, with £30m of equity and debt funding coming from the Governmentʼs Home Building Fund, administered through Homes England.

Experienced Entrepreneur Noel McKee, founder of We Buy Any Car, has also made a sizeable investment in the new partnership and will take an incremental c 5% stake.
Homes England, the governmentʼs housing accelerator, has been instrumental in providing significant financial support and expertise to the new partnership as well as providing assurance to the investors.

Yoshihiro Nakai, President and Representative Director of Sekisui House Ltd commented: “We are extremely pleased to be able to work together with Homes England and Urban Splash to establish our operations and help to create outstanding communities in the UK. Using modern methods of construction to build high quality homes with short build times is one of our companyʼs great strengths. Our technology and know-how can help resolve pressing social issues in the UK, and I want to see us play our part effective immediately. These operations can also help bring vitality to UK regions, and we will work to make the strongest connections with the local communities.”

Kit Malthouse MP, Minister of State for Housing said:
“Sekisui House bring with them a proven track record in harnessing the modern methods of construction that are transforming home building.

“Backed by Government investment, todayʼs announcement will support our urgent mission to deliver more, better and faster home construction to ensure a new generation can realise the dream of home ownership.”

Sir Edward Lister, Chair of Homes England, commented:
“When Homes England launched last year we said weʼd disrupt the housing market to increase the pace of construction. By helping bring one of the worldʼs largest and most innovative housebuilders to UK shores, weʼre putting our money where our mouth is.

“By creating a more diverse landscape – where smaller builders such as Urban Splash get a stronger foothold – weʼre rebuilding the building industry; driving up quality and improving consumer choice.”

Tom Bloxham MBE, Chairman of Urban Splash, added:
“We believe that there is a real opportunity in the UK housebuilding industry, we hope to leverage our 25 years of placemaking experience and our recent investments into modular housing by bringing in new partners; having looked far and wide we chose Sekisui House from Japan because of the companyʼs unrivalled global experience in modular construction and shared values and philosophy that we are making homes not units, and a joint belief in the need for a green future. We are also proud to partner with Homes England – part of the UK Government – because of their commitment to modular and desire to grow capacity in the UK housing business.”

“We are incredibly excited about the accelerated production of much-needed homes and evolving traditional practices as we embrace the benefits of innovative offsite construction. I hope it will establish us as the housing partner of choice for landowners – both public and private.”

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