Good morning and welcome to the Unite Group Trading Update and Q4 Fund Valuations. I will now hand over to CEO Joe Lister. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everybody, and thank you for taking the time to join the call. I'm joined here this morning by our CFO, Mike Burt, and COO, Karan Khanna. Hopefully, you've had time to read our announcement that was out this morning, and as an intro to this call, I just want to provide a bit more color on the following three areas: our reservations progress, our capital allocation framework, and the launch of the share buyback program, and the Q4 valuations. We'll then open up for Q&A. Before we get going, I think it is worth just stating that we're only six weeks on since the investor event, and we are still early in the sales cycle.
However, we are reiterating the guidance we set out at our investor event in November, and we will come back at our prelims in February, as usual, to provide detailed earnings guidance for 2026, and this will include the impact of Empiric. So looking at reservations progress, reservations for the next academic year are currently at 64%, while this is below the 67% at the same time last year. As I say, it is still very early in the sales cycle, and we remain on track to achieve the 93%-96% occupancy and 2%-3% rental growth that we provided six weeks ago. UCAS applications data will be out at the end of this month, and it is expected again to be positive based on demographic growth and continuing the trend that we saw at the October deadline, which saw applications up 7%.
High-tariff and mid-tariff universities are actively targeting more U.K. students, and so we expect to have more students in our markets than there was last year. Direct sales have continued in line with last year and represent 8% of total beds sold, and we are continuing to be proactive with our sales and marketing approach, as Karan outlined in November. Encouragingly, we are ahead of last year and some of the weaker markets, although, as I say, there remains some way to go in this sales cycle. Universities have taken a more cautious approach at this stage of the cycle, and that is what they're telling us until they get a better view in their numbers, and so delaying or pausing renewals and take-up of beds under nominations agreements, and this currently sits at 56%, and we're seeing the impact of the financial pressures on universities.
They are less willing to take on financial risk through those nominations before the UCAS application window is closed at the end of January. They just don't want to be left with void rooms that they have to pay for, and based on our discussions with the universities, and it is fairly typical for this stage of the cycle, we expect to see further demand for beds over the next few months as they firm up on their numbers, and as I mentioned, we will provide updates as usual in late February and again in early April, and we will be more proactive with our guidance ranges than we were last year. Moving on to capital allocation, we set out the revised capital allocation framework in November, and this will see us transition to being a net seller as our disposals accelerate and our development activity becomes more selective.
Where we have surplus capital, this will be deployed into university partnerships and share buybacks. Consistent with that approach, we are today launching a share buyback program of up to GBP 100 million. This reflects our confidence in Unite's long-term return prospects and our focus on shareholder value. This will be funded by the capital from deferred development activity while maintaining the strength of our balance sheet. In order to maximize returns, we've taken the decision to defer the delivery of our Freestone Island scheme in Bristol and have also decided not to proceed with the TP Paddington scheme that now has planning. As we set out six weeks ago, we are targeting GBP 300 million-GBP 400 million of disposals in 2026, and we are now starting to execute against that plan. This revolves around three strands. First, we're exploring the sale of assets to our JVs.
Secondly, we are preparing a portfolio to bring to market in the next few weeks. And thirdly, we are engaging with buyers for potential single asset sales. As I'm sure you're aware, there are several portfolios on the market at the moment more broadly, but assets are trading, and as you know, we have a good track record of selling assets, and we will continue to push against this target throughout the year. We expect to generate further surplus capital as we make progress with these disposals, and we will look to invest where we see the strongest risk-adjusted returns. On valuations, as we flagged a few weeks ago, valuations for the quarter reflect lower than anticipated rental growth and a slight softening of yields. USAF has seen a four basis points yield increase and a decline of 0.6% in the quarter, up 0.8% in the year.
LSAV has seen slightly stronger rental growth, albeit offset by 16 basis points of yield compression, leading to a decline of 1.3% in the quarter, up 0.6% in the year. Based on our conversation with the valuers, we expect the group's property yields to be broadly in line with the increase seen across the USAF portfolio, so just to finish, and before I open up to Q&A, last November we set out a clear set of strategic priorities, which were focused around our operational excellence and capital allocation, and I remain excited about the opportunities ahead of us as we start to execute against the repositioning of our portfolio through that accelerated disposal program, which will enable us to return to 97% occupancy with above-inflation rental growth, and we will continue to implement a lean cost structure.
We will deliver the Empiric business plan and continue to focus on securing one new university joint venture each year, and as we demonstrated today, preparing to deploy surplus capital to share buybacks, and I believe that delivering against these priorities will lead to a meaningful impact on our performance, so now I'm happy to open up to Q&A, so perhaps Laura, our operator, can first go to the conference call to take any questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. We'll pause for a brief moment. Thank you. We'll now take our first question from [Kellen Marley of Qualitas]. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Morning, guys. Thank you for taking my question. Just one on the yield expansion seen in the London assets, I think 16 basis points in the quarter. Do you believe these are now fairly priced, or is further outward pressure on yields likely in 2026?
Hi there, Kellen. Yeah, I think it's fair to say on the yield movements we're seeing in Q4, not a lot traded, and really it's a sort of a sense of sentiment from valuers in terms of we've seen clearly slightly weaker occupancy for the 2025-2026 academic year, and they've moved out yields in London and in other markets as a result. London remains one of our strongest markets operationally, and generally what we see when we speak to investors is there is a significant amount of capital still targeting London. Portfolios in the market, which include London assets, generally have most traction as well, so clearly the values will need to reflect whatever transacts in the market over the next 12 months, but generally we still see a good bid on London.
Maybe just one quick extra one. How do you expect LTV to trend going into next year based on the valuations and share buybacks?
Yeah, we can't give you a steer on valuations for next year, Kellen, but in terms of net debt, the capital allocation framework sets out that we would be selling those GBP 300 million-GBP 400 million of assets in next year. Our sort of capital investment in terms of the university partnerships and developments is about GBP 150 million-GBP 200 million per annum. And then, as we've said, where we have surplus capital, we'll be reinvesting that. So I think it's fair to assume that net debt will be broadly stable, and that hopefully gives you a steer in terms of how the LTV might trend.
Okay, thanks.
Thank you. And we'll now take our next question from Andres Toome of Green Street. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. Just firstly, just wondering that 300 basis points difference in university nomination agreements, how many actual university agreements does that equate to?
Yeah, so we have agreements with over 60 universities, and within those agreements, generally we will be speaking to universities about the take-up that they will have each year. We have about 12% of our beds are renewing under single-year or maturing longer-term agreements, so it's probably around a dozen universities where we've seen universities amending or deferring the confirmation of their overall numbers. On the flip side, we've also seen a few new universities come to us for beds, and so it's fairly normal at this time of year that we're having lots of conversations with all of our university partners just to firm up those numbers.
But as I said, that they are just taking a slightly more cautious approach this year, which we feel is being driven by those financial pressures that they are feeling and wanting to ensure that they are not left with a financial liability based on having overbooked too many rooms.
Thank you. And then my second question is around supply, and of course, you are adjusting your pipeline ambitions, but how are you seeing new construction starts in the broader market evolving after a softer leasing year? Is the behavior of other market participants similar to yours?
Yeah, hi, Andres. I think we're seeing, akin to our behavior, people are finding it more difficult to make schemes work and stack up. I think we're still expecting to see a similar level of supply in 2026 as we did in 2025. However, our sense is you will start to see a reduction in that level of deliveries from 2027 onwards. Clearly, when you look at our pipeline, where we're committed in the medium term is those on-campus university partnerships where the schemes are unlocked through the relationships with the universities. We do think viability off-campus is a lot harder, though, and that will see supply reduce.
Thank you. And then any sort of indication of what's the lending market for PBSA like at the moment? Have spreads moved at all, or any sort of indication of that would be helpful?
Yeah, so we've been in the market more on the private credit side in recent months with our university partnerships, but it's still a sort of pretty good barometer of credit appetite for PBSA, and lender appetite is still there and is still very healthy. So we haven't really seen any change in lender behavior, Andres, and I think it's fair to say spreads have been pretty stable over the last sort of three to six months, and probably on a sort of 12-month view, they probably come in about 25 basis points.
Thank you. That's all from my side.
Thank you. And we'll now take our next question from Tom Musson of Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Yeah, morning, gents. Appreciate the updated 2026 guidance is going to come with the results later in February, but can you just clarify whether the 7%-10% reduction in EPS that you did outline at the capital markets event reflected the year-end restructuring and the additional cost-saving opportunities that you're discussing today, or whether that's incremental? And then a second one, just a short one on the buyback. If we assume that GBP 100 million ends up being the number, over what sort of time horizon would you expect to be able to execute on that?
Hi, Tom. So in terms of the cost savings, so the guidance we gave on earnings at the November capital markets day, that included our guidance for costs to be flat in 2026 overall versus 2025. And within that, that assumed the savings in our central staff cost that we're flagging in the statement today. Then on your second point in terms of the time to deliver the buyback, we expect it to take between three to six months.
Very clear. Thank you.
Thank you. We have no further questions in the conference call. I'll now hand over for webcast questions.
Great. Thanks, Laura. I think we've got one question on the webcast.
We've got one question from Véronique Meertens at Kempen. You mentioned that you're in discussions with universities, but there's some hesitance around uncertainty on application numbers at this stage. Is there also a discussion about rent levels with universities regarding these nomination agreements that you can comment on?
Yeah, the discussions with universities do revolve around both the volume of beds and also price. With the multi-year agreements, that is a fairly procedural discussion with the inbuilt annual inflators being reflected, and that is supporting rental growth of around 3%-4% on those agreements where we have them. For single-year deals, there tends to be more of a commercial negotiation around pricing and what is being seen in the market, but we're not seeing any significant pressure from universities to reduce prices, and they're comfortable with the sorts of rental growth that we're seeing elsewhere. Probably the one pressure that we are seeing, and particularly given universities' greater focus on U.K. undergraduates, is for some of those newer contracts to be shorter tenancy lengths, so going from 51 weeks to 44 weeks in some of our strongest markets.
So a little bit on tenancy length as universities want to focus more on U.K. students, but that is on a relatively small proportion of those additional beds.
We've got one more question on the webcast. This is from [Joe Mortlock] at the Millway Partnership. Why do you consider a share buyback the most efficient use of capital at this time? Thanks for the question, Joe. So as we set out at our investor event at the end of last year, we said that we would deploy surplus capital into our university joint ventures and share buybacks. With the university joint ventures, that's going to be led by opportunities. We would like to add another one of those university joint ventures during this year, but we're not at the point of being able to announce anything at this stage. And having made some surplus capital available through that deferral of development and the headroom in our leverage ratios, share buybacks today are the best use of capital on a risk-adjusted basis.
Great. Well, thank you all. I think that picks up all of the questions on the webcast and therefore concludes the call. So thank you all for joining, and we look forward to catching up soon.