Against a backdrop of challenging market conditions, this year saw Moorfield Group strengthen our capital base, portfolio, team, and operations. We are well-placed to capture upcoming opportunities as the real estate cycle shows signs of entering the recovery phase. Some of this year’s highlights include:
Expanding portfolios in our high conviction sectors of Living and Storage, with high-quality acquisitions for our fifth value-add fund (MREFV) and private real estate investment trust (MREIT) as part of our Hub & Spoke model.
Entering into a joint venture with the Greater Manchester Pension Fund on behalf of MREFV to develop, own and operate Podium, our £120m GDV, 440-home multi-family build-to-rent scheme in Greater Manchester. Podium was also awarded North West Deal of the Year in CoStar’s Impact Awards.
Growing our residential-for-rent portfolio to over 600 homes (£200m+ GAV) following the acquisition of 32 new-build single-family for-rent houses in Cambridgeshire on behalf of MREIT, as well as individual houses and other smaller developments to build on our London, Bristol and Cambridge residential clusters.
These homes complement our student houses for sharers, which have undergone significant refurbishment, including the installation of solar panels, as part of a drive to improve the customer offering and operational efficiency of the largest subset of the student accommodation sector, that has been over-looked despite being more affordable and the preferred option of the domestic student.
Growing our purpose-built student accommodation portfolio, with the funding of a £60m GDV, 204 bed scheme in Bristol.
We continue to be active across our c.3.5m sq ft storage portfolio, where we are investing across self-storage, open-storage and logistics in markets where supply-demand dynamics are strongest. We opened a new self-storage facility in Acton, West London as part of our joint venture with Storage King, which totals over 600,000 sq.ft of floorspace across nine assets. This has been complemented by regearing tenant leases, refining planning permissions, and refurbishing assets; all driving value in our wider storage portfolio.
We completed a number of capex programmes across the Living and Storage portfolios, which seek to future-proof and drive value by modernising and improving sustainability profiles, customer service and management standards.
Our CEO and CIO Charles Ferguson-Davie celebrated 20 years at Moorfield. Chris Perera, who has been with the business for over 12 years, was promoted to Head of Origination and joined the Group Board. Moorfield’s average tenure of 11 years is one of our key advantages and a reflection of our strong culture.
In January 2026, Moorfield will reach 30 years since Marc Gilbard took over the leadership and we look forward to reflecting on what has changed over this period and what we expect looking ahead in the New Year.
We would like to extend a warm thank you to our investors and industry partners, and we look forward to collaborating further in 2026.