M&G publishes on its website:
Greencore Homes, a housebuilder constructing low carbon and energy efficient homes, has secured a further £30 million from M&G Investments. The equity investment will be used to drive significant expansion, initially by targeting land acquisitions across the South East of England to complement existing sites underway.
Since M&G’s initial £15 million investment into the company around two years ago, the foundations have been laid for Greencore to become a national housebuilder as it aims to build 10,000 homes in the next decade. The homes that Greencore build achieve a net zero carbon balance in operation and target better than net zero in terms of embodied carbon in the structure. Due to their many sustainability features, occupiers are likely to benefit from reduced costs associated with living in an energy efficient home.
Greencore’s flexible and scalable model evolves around building its innovative timber-frame panels in its factory, which are insulated with natural materials including hemp, lime and wood-fibre. The panels are then assembled onsite in a matter of days. The homes are highly energy efficient and are designed and built to meet Passivhaus thermal performance standards.
Greencore’s onsite assembly method differs from other approaches to modular housebuilding where full structures or modules are built offsite. Greencore’s first factory was opened in Bicester in 2022. The firm can replicate this model with additional factories, where it can recruit and train workforces locally, to deliver housebuilding projects across the country.
Building on an existing portfolio of completed and pipeline projects, Greencore is looking for new partnerships to deliver affordable and private housing for rent and for sale in addition to the existing partnership with M&G Real Estate.
The company currently has around 40 employees and is led by industry veteran Jon Di-Stefano who joined the company as Chief Executive in October 2022. The executive and senior management team has extensive combined experience working for listed, national and regional housebuilders.
The £45 million investment in total from M&G is from Catalyst, a £5 billion purpose-led private assets strategy, investing in innovative companies tackling some of the world’s biggest environmental and social challenges. The Catalyst team manages a £5 billion purpose-led flexible private markets mandate on behalf of the £126 billion Prudential With-Profits Fund, which includes PruFund1.
Zach Webb, Head of European Investments in Catalyst, said: “Greencore’s approach is unique and a disruptive solution with huge potential to scale. Our extra investment will create opportunities to deliver urgently needed high quality, ultra-low carbon homes, using methods and materials that showcase what the future of the UK housebuilding industry could look like.”
Jon Di-Stefano, CEO of Greencore Homes, said: “Our vision is to lead the housebuilding industry in the delivery of climate positive homes and M&G’s further investment reflects their confidence in our potential to take on this role and operate at scale. This investment will enable us to secure the land needed to deliver on our targets whilst supporting local communities, jobs and the environment. We look forward to continuing our strong relationship with M&G while we seek out new partnerships to help bolster our pipeline and support our target of building 10,000 climate-positive homes.”
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