Marcus Hodges (COO) and Raphaël Koifman (CFO) join leading retirement BTR operator at time of aggressive expansion
Birchgrove, the UK’s leading provider of rented retirement homes, has appointed a new Chief Operations Officer and Chief Financial Officer to help drive the company’s growth and support the predicted demand for rental homes in the next ten years.
Marcus Hodges, Chief Operating Officer joins with over two decades’ commercial and operational management experience in co-living, BTR and student accommodation. Prior to Birchgrove, Hodges served as UK Operations Director for co-living provider The Collective, where he led a team of around 100 managers and operational staff in growing the UK business. Hodges has also served in senior operational roles for IQ Student Accommodation and Unite Students.
New CFO Raphaël Koifman joins Birchgrove with extensive experience in real estate finance. Koifman previously worked for several institutional lending platforms and banks, including Cheyne Capital, Deutsche Pfandbriefbank, Santander and Barclays Capital. At property developer Avanton, and property investment firm Griffen, Koifman served as CFO where he was responsible for all operational, financial, tax and regulatory matters. As CFO of Birchgrove, his responsibilities will include all financial and tax aspects of the business and the sourcing of funding to support the growth of the company.
Founded in 2017, Birchgrove operates three retirement communities across the South-East, with three further communities under construction and now available for rental off-plan, a seventh community acquired in Chiswick, West London, and negotiations underway for two further locations to be added to the portfolio. Given the UK’s ageing population, Birchgrove’s – as the pioneer of the UK’s retirement rental model – is working to scale its network of communities, both into London and beyond the M25.
As a testament to the rising demand and growth of the sector, in 2022 M&G Real Estate, part of M&G’s £65 billion private assets division, acquired two Birchgrove developments in a new long-term partnership that is expected to deliver more than £200m of purpose-built senior-living communities by 2027.
Both appointments bring the critical interplay of strategic and operational business skills necessary for Birchgrove’s continual growth and expansion.
Honor Barratt, Chief Executive, Birchgrove said:
“At Birchgrove, we have intimate and extensive knowledge of our later living customer and what they need from us to build somewhere they can call home. What we were looking for in Marcus and Raphael was all the knowledge we don’t have, namely how to roll out a portfolio at scale and speed, and how to drive the best possible yield on exit. With these two on board, every day we are honing our operations and bringing our model closer to BTR yields.”
