Student accommodation giant Unite Group has exchanged contracts to sell the academy school at its new Hawthorne House development in Stratford for £40.7 million, the company announced today.
The FTSE-listed group said the deal, announced through a stock exchange filing this morning, covers the academy element of the 36-storey scheme on Farthingale Walk in east London. Unite will keep the 719-bed student accommodation part of the building.
The sale has been priced at a 4.9 per cent yield, representing a 2 per cent discount to the academy’s June 2026 book value, and is expected to complete shortly. The company has not named the buyer.
Proceeds from the disposal will initially be used to reduce borrowing. The academy had already been included in the £225 million of assets Unite flagged as under offer in its third-quarter trading update.
Disposal drive gathers pace
The Stratford sale is the latest step in Unite’s push to recycle capital out of non-student accommodation assets. The group says it remains on track to deliver between £300 million and £400 million of disposals this year.
Joe Lister, Unite Group’s chief executive, said the deal was “evidence of our capital discipline and proactive capital recycling programme”.
“We are moving at pace to further increase our alignment to the UK’s strongest universities and remain on track to deliver £300–400 million of disposals this year,” he added.
What is Hawthorne House?
Hawthorne House is Unite’s flagship new London development, a £185 million, 36-storey tower at 2 Farthingale Walk, Stratford, close to Stratford station. The scheme replaced the former Jubilee House office block and was built by contractor RG Group, topping out late last year before completing in time for the 2026/27 academic year.
The lower eight floors of the building — around 65,000 square feet — house a sixth-form academy operated by the London Academy of Excellence, which took the space on an initial 35-year term. It is that academy element Unite has now agreed to sell.
The student accommodation above is fully let for the 2026/27 academic year, supported by a long-term nomination agreement with the University of the Arts London covering more than half of the 719 beds. The university’s East Bank campus, home to the London College of Fashion, sits a short walk away in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, putting Hawthorne House at the heart of one of London’s fastest-changing cultural districts. The area’s growing transport importance has also fuelled proposals for Stratford International to become a new Eurostar stop.
London’s student housing boom
The deal underlines how central east London has become to the capital’s student housing market. London is home to more than 300,000 students, and purpose-built student accommodation has become one of the most sought-after asset classes for investors, with fully-let schemes commanding strong prices despite wider uncertainty in commercial property.
Unite, founded in Bristol in 1991, is the UK’s largest owner, manager and developer of purpose-built student accommodation, providing homes to around 72,000 students across 207 properties in 29 university towns and cities. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and operates as a real estate investment trust.
The disposal comes as London continues to see major investment flows into its built environment — from a new £70 million Future London Growth Fund backed by the Mayor to business leaders’ calls for the Chancellor to back the Bakerloo line extension.
For Stratford, the transaction is another marker of the area’s shift from post-Olympic regeneration to an established education and culture quarter. The former office site now houses students and sixth-formers within sight of the East Bank institutions, while Unite retains the income-producing student beds above — precisely the capital-recycling balance the group says it is chasing.
Hawthorne House in Stratford, photographed in October 2026. Photo: Mortadella42, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
