News in brief - 1 July 2022

Pension Insurance Corporation (PIC) has announced plans to invest up to £200m in UK retirement villages in a joint venture with Octopus Real Estate.

As part of the joint venture, called Senior Living Investment Partners, PIC has committed to investing up to £200m in equity to fund the development and operation of around 10 new retirement communities across the country, in its first investment into the UK retirement living sector. Senior Living Investment Partners is expected to provide homes for around 2,000 older residents and aims to deliver around £1bn in gross development value, with a primary objective of creating a portfolio of new, high-quality, retirement communities nationwide.

Wealth Wizards has launched a new software solution, Turo Wellbeing.

The software is designed to allow advice firms, life assurers, banks and building societies to help consumers improve their financial wellbeing amid the rising cost-of-living crisis. The solution is already being used by Royal London to create a series of personalised videos to help customers to improve their financial wellbeing through a guidance-only pathway. The personalised journey is based on a set of non-intrusive questions that review nine areas of wellbeing, and is designed to encourage customers to ‘play’ with resources and take action to improve their financial wellbeing.

Phoenix Group has invested £90m in affordable housing, bringing the group’s total UK social housing holdings to over £2.5bn.

Phoenix was chosen as lead investor with funding provided through Macquarie Asset Management. The investment will support Alliance Homes in the development of around 2,000 affordable homes over the next 10 years, in an effort to help address the UK housing crisis. Part of the funds will also be invested in improving the sustainability of Alliance’s current housing stock. The funding for the private placement was for a total value of £100m and will be drawn in tranches aligned with Alliance’s business needs, giving long-term certainty of funding.

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