Real estate firm Ashland Pacific has formed a joint venture with Integrated Capital Management (ICM), an investment management firm, that will focus on acquiring and managing $150 million of student housing properties on the US West Coast. Both companies are based in Los Angeles.

Ashland Pacific will be the managing member of newly formed Ashland Pacific Integrated (API) with primary responsibility for the venture’s day-to-day operations.

API has made its first acquisition, an $18 million portfolio of student housing assets located less than one mile from the University of Southern California (USC) campus. The nine properties, comprising 84 beds which are currently 94% occupied. Marcus & Millichap represented API in the transaction.

Julio Davila, president and chief executive of Ashland Pacific, said: “This joint venture enables us to take our proven acquisition and management model to more student housing markets on the West Coast with a goal to quadruple assets in the next five years. Our first step was to acquire a base of properties in our own backyard around USC and make a large impact in Downtown LA’s student housing market.”

With this most recent acquisition, Ashland Pacific’s student housing owned/managed portfolio grows to 40 properties valued at nearly $70 million around USC.

Troy Dodgion, Ashland Pacific’s chief operating officer said: “We are thrilled to have ICM as our partner in this new venture to scale our student housing platform. Ashland Pacific brings institutional-calibre operations to the student housing market while delivering strong adjusted returns to our investors.”