Dutch pension fund forms £600m U.K. residential JV

Legal & General Capital and Dutch pension fund manager PGGM have formed a £600 million ($855 million) joint venture, a Build-to-Rent partnership, to build private rental housing across the United Kingdom, providing more than 3,000 homes.

The LGC and PGGM partnership aims to help address the U.K. housing crisis by increasing the supply of new homes. The United Kingdom does not achieve its minimum house building target, building only around 50 percent of its 250,000 annual requirement and forcing a higher proportion of its population into substandard rental accommodation.

In America and Europe, fully fledged institutionally funded and managed rental property markets have developed to increase the supply of homes, lower prices and provide better quality products and service. In the United Kingdom, the rental market is different, due to the lack of supply of quality homes and its cottage industry nature.

“The U.K. rental market, compared t