Lawrence Frampton, co-founder of Coral Portfolio commented:

“Fund Aid was launched with the intention of supporting children’s charities that have been carefully selected not only through their individual need but their efficiency in allocating capital raised to provide the required results. We hope to rapidly expand both the charities supported and list of donors over the coming months. It is particularly important in today’s current climate to support these worthwhile charities and Coral are delighted to be able to make a real difference to worthwhile charities in helping them to achieve their target funding and goals. This is particularly important to those who may not have the publicity and market recognition of the larger charities.”

Fund Aid, alongside donations from Coral Portfolio, will initially support three charities:

Acorns Children’s Hospice:

A UK charity that provides palliative care and other services with the aim of improving the short lives of terminally ill children and supporting their families.(www.acorns.org.uk)

CLIC Sargent:

A UK charity that helps child cancer patients and their families throughout their difficult journey by providing holistic care, particularly in terms of otherwise unavailable practical support (www.clicsargent.org.uk)

The Children’s Trust:
A UK charity providing vital care support and education for children with complex needs and/or major disabilities in their daily lives
(www.thechildrenstrust.org.uk)

In their recent research publication, James Pullan, head of Knight Frank Student Accommodation, says, “Student property is one of the most successful real estate asset classes, thanks to stability of demand for student bedrooms from all over the UK. The market is still structurally undersupplied in all core University cities”.

More detail can be found in the attached summary.

Over the 12 month period up to 31/12/2012, the fund’s total return for Class A GBP shares was 9.09%, year to date (to 31/3/13) for 2013 is 1.83%. Coral have also now passed its 4th anniversary for Class A shares with a total net return of 43.25% and an annualised return of 9.40% p.a. More information on Coral reaching this milestone can be found at www.coralportfolio.com/news

Mr Harper was speaking to The Pie, an online educational magazine. He said ‘We are not harming genuine students. More university students are coming here and bogus students are being kept out. There is no limit on the number of students who can come to the UK.’

Reported on workpermit.com, Mr Harper continued: “‘Numbers from India and China have seen big increases. This shows that, despite stories to the contrary, [international] students continue to want to come to the UK to study at our world class universities…By protecting the reputation of the British education system, we will be able to compete in a global race’

Just look at the track record:

• Four years of consistently positive growth creating a 43.25% net increase since launch
• An annualised net return of 9.40% per annum and 8.94% in the past 12 months
• Regulated in the EU, broad spread of provider risk and a topical liquidity strategy

Coral’s strategy adapts and responds to the changes in the sector including :

• Student mobility and choice of degree
• Attitudes of students as they become consumers seeking modern amenity and convenience
• Student fees financing and Government immigration policy

Responding to the demands of a maturing student housing market is reflected in:

• Preference for Russell Group universities in the UK
• A broad spread of provider risk and geographical exposure
• Exposure to more student beds than any other fund (30,514 as at 31/12/2012)
• High aggregate occupancy in excess of 90%
• Access to differing investment strategies, creatively building real value
• Imminent international exposure exporting the same, successful model to a wider global market

With a flexible approach and an eye to market changes, Student Accommodation remains a very viable and promising asset class.

(*The Coral Student Portfolio GBP Class A shares launched on 2 March 2009.)

The Coral Student Portfolio share price for GBP Class A increased by a further 0.60% during February moving to £1.4235 per share.

Coral purchased an additional position in the Cordea Savills Student Halls Fund on the secondary market, at a significant discount to NAV. Coral’s strategy behind this is as follows:

The interest rate swaps are currently circa £2 m “out of the money”. By Q1 2014, all of these swaps will have unwound providing an uplift of over 3.0% on today’s NAV. 60.5% of the fund is invested in properties which are leased or under nomination agreements to universities. This highlights the relatively defensive nature of the portfolio with 62.7% of the beds automatically being let for the next academic year. This is mainly achieved through the leased assets in Bath and Portsmouth and a nomination agreement in Edinburgh.

Over the 12 month period up to 31/12/2012, the fund’s total return was 9.77%. The manager is forecasting a distribution yield of 5.69% for 2013 based on the current NAV, which when added to both the discount to NAV and projected NAV growth, makes this a profitable investment for the Fund.

Coral are currently holding a sizeable cash balance in the Fund, in line with our liquidity strategy, but also in reserve for further purchases over the coming months which are at various stages of negotiation.

A copy of the Report is available here, go to Student homepage for more information. Click on “Find Out About The Coral Student Portfolio.”

Today UCAS publishes statistics on applicants for full-time undergraduate higher education in the 2013 application cycle. They include all applications considered ‘on time’ for the 15 January deadline and give the first reliable indication of demand for higher education in the UK this year.

These figures show a 3.5% headline increase in the number of applicants to institutions across the UK compared to the same point last year.

Application rates, which take population changes into account, show that the proportion of English 18 year olds applying in 2013 has increased by one percentage point. The application rates of 18 year olds across the UK are at, or near, their highest recorded levels.

Application rates from disadvantaged 18 year olds are also at, or close to, record levels. International applications are up, as are those from mature groups.

Mary Curnock Cook, Chief Executive of UCAS said:

“This is an encouraging report, with no double-dip for applications and continuing improvements for disadvantaged groups. Young people from disadvantaged backgrounds are 80% more likely to apply than a decade ago.

However, there remains a stubborn gap between application rates for young men and young women. This is most pronounced for disadvantaged groups where young women are 50% more likely to apply than young men.

The 2% rise in the number of 18 year old applicants, and the 10.5% increase in 19 year olds, is against a headwind of demographic change that has left the 18 year old group some 60,000 smaller than in 2009.  The significant increase in 19 year olds applying may be indicating that some young people delayed their decisions about higher education after leaving school last year.”

Full details are available from here:

http://www.ucas.com/about_us/media_enquiries/media_releases/2013/20130130c

Government ministers, Vince Cable and David Willetts, have confirmed their strong support for UK universities in their January 11th letter to HEFCE Chief Executive.

They said: “We are determined to promote and protect our universities by creating the financial and other incentives that enable successful, autonomous institutions to thrive”, in their Department’s letter to Sir Alan Langlands.

The key new measures announced are as follows:

*     The number of students achieving ABB grades or better at A-level (or equivalent) that universities can recruit will be unrestricted. This unrestricted pool was limited, in 2012/13, only to those achieving AAB grades or better. It is estimated that this change will increase the size of this uncapped pool from 85,000 to approximately 120,000 and in particular, stronger universities should be well positioned to benefit from this change.

*     Penalties applied to universities over-recruiting students subject to number controls (i.e. excluding the uncapped pool), have been relaxed. Universities will now be permitted to over-recruit by 3% of their allocation without receiving a financial penalty whereas in 2012/13 universities effectively risked being fined for exceeding student number controls. This is expected to remove some of the caution universities have previously shown when making offers to prospective students and we expect to see improved recruitment levels.

*     Up to 5,000 additional university places will be made available, to be allocated flexibly.

It became evident that the process for allocating student places is much more important in determining  final student intake than initial applications. This was shown quite clearly in the 2012/13 academic year, with over 185,000 applicants being unplaced while a number of universities reported places were unfilled. The changes confirmed by the UK Government are intended to address this disparity between the demand and supply of places.

Coral’s CEO, John Kennedy responded:

“For the Coral Portfolio which focuses on key University towns and core degree courses in the UK, this is welcome news and augurs well for the future and complements our overseas plans”.

HEFCE announcement can be found here:

http://www.hefce.ac.uk/news/newsarchive/2013/name,76313,en.html

while the grant letter from the Ministers can be downloaded from the button below.