Director, Head of Investor Relations & Business Development at Alignvest Student Housing - Toronto, ON, CA
Alignvest Student Housing REIT is focused on consolidating the fragmented, institutional grade, purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) real estate sector across Canada through its operating company, Canadian Student Living Group Limited Partnership. We seek to generate attractive returns in this proven, low-risk, and resilient asset class by leveraging our early-mover advantage to acquire high quality PBSA assets in major Canadian university markets, improving the underlying operations of purchased assets, and maximizing economies of scale. As disciplined stewards our of investors' capital, any acquisition we undertake must survive a rigorous due diligence process and clear strict economic hurdles to ensure we deliver sustainable growth and attractive returns to our investors.Since its inception in June 2018, Alignvest Student Housing REIT has raised over $200 million of equity capital and is now the largest university-focused PBSA owner/operator in Canada with a ~$670 million portfolio comprised of almost 4,700 beds across 11 properties in five university markets. We believe that the Canadian market presents one of the most attractive opportunities within the $200 billion global PBSA sector. For starters, the Canadian post-secondary student population growth consistently outperforms global peers and limited funding for Canadian universities has constrained their ability to service this increase in demand. Furthermore, fragmented local ownership, coupled with limited institutional capital, has created an attractive buying environment in which we've been able to acquire high quality PBSA assets at a meaningful discount to comparable multi-family assets.