McGoff Group secures £15M strategic investment to support expansion

McGoff Group Projects, the operational Real Estate division of the McGoff Group, is pleased to announce a strategic £15m investment from AJ Bell founder Andy Bell and former director Fergus Lyons.

This investment will support the expansion of the Group’s operational real estate activity, which is focused on purpose-built care homes, Build-to-Rent residential schemes and children’s day nurseries.

The primary purpose of the £15m investment will be to expand the Group’s new care home platform, Dunham Care, which opened its first home in Herne Bay, Kent, earlier this year. It has two projects currently under construction, in Bowdon, South Manchester, and Congleton, Cheshire.

A further eight high-quality settings either have planning consent or are the subject of imminent planning applications, with a growing pipeline of opportunities planned to be delivered over the next 5-7 year period, including a dedicated focus in the South-East where the Group is keen to expand its footprint with a cluster of settings.

Dunham Care seeks to mirror the success of the Group’s previous care home platform, New Care, which was a high quality design-led operator of new build care home settings aimed towards the private fee-paying market, located in areas of affluence with high demand characteristics where often there was a distinct lack of new generation facilities.

The New Care estate was successfully developed, operated and disposed of over a number of years following an initial phase of transactions with HCP Inc and Octopus Health Fund, and latterly with HIG Real Estate backed Lovett Care in October 2024. The combined total gross disposal sum equated to circa £275m, with the Group employing more than 1,200 staff at its peak.

Commenting on this new investment, Chris McGoff says: “This is a fantastic vote of confidence in what we do by Andy and Fergus and comes at an exciting time for the markets we are exposed to. The demand for new generation, state of the art care homes is in our view stronger than ever as demographic pressure drives demand, and older, inefficient

settings become obsolete and close due to ever tightening regulatory compliance, plus higher energy and employment costs.

“This coupled with recent large scale investment activity in the sector, including Welltower’s acquisition of Barchester, in what was believed to be the world’s biggest care home transaction, highlights continued confidence in the UK care market and its long-term growth potential.”

Alongside Dunham Care, the Group continues to scale complementary operational platforms across residential and childcare.

McGoff Group Projects is prominent in residential development, specialising in institutional grade Build-to-Rent delivery via its Downtown Asset Management brand. It is currently nearing completion of the first phase of circa 500 units in Manchester’s Victoria North Regeneration corridor.

Back to the Garden Childcare is another business within the operational real estate portfolio, with the Group delivering new build nursery settings in areas of high demand. With two locations operational in Altrincham and Lymm, and a third due to open in Bowdon later this year, the Group will look to add to its portfolio over the coming years.

Dave Foran, Group Corporate Finance Director, adds: “Our exposure to all three sectors reflects a consistent strategy of targeting markets with strong underlying demand and supply constraints.

Care, housing and childcare are all supported by long-term socio-economic drivers, and each requires sustained new-build delivery to meet that demand. Our focus remains on executing developments efficiently and scaling platforms capable of delivering high-quality assets.”

The Group acknowledges the role of Jonnie Whittle of Major Oak in facilitating the introduction and supporting the transaction process.

Andy Bell says: “We have spent considerable time assessing the operational real estate market and believe there is a compelling opportunity to back experienced developers who can consistently deliver high-quality, income generating assets.