SGM.L Share News (SGM)

Residential and urban regeneration specialist Sigma Capital Group said its private rented sector joint venture with Gatehouse Bank has started the construction of 927 new rental houses.The £100m development project will create family houses and apartments in 14 different locations across Liverpool and Manchester in the next two years.Sigma's chief executive Graham Barnet believes the company has "considerable potential to create one of the largest new build privately rented residential portfolios in the UK"."We believe the joint venture with Gatehouse and our new partnership with Grainger firmly establishes blueprints for further large scale housing programmes across cities throughout England with other partners and additional local authorities," he continued.Vice President of Real Estate Investment at Gatehouse Bank Scott Nicol said: "The complexity of creating a debt and equity funded, institutional scale, private rented platform from scratch hasn't been an easy task and therefore this transaction is a milestone for the joint venture and also for the sector in general."Shares in Sigma Capital had risen 1.47% to 69p at 11:03 on Wednesday.