“This is a hugely exciting project for Alpha Plus and the BRIT school. In our own schools we have seen, at first hand, how music, art, design, drama and dance enhance educational excellence and help children to grow and develop through self-expression.”

Mark Hanley-Browne
CEO
Alpha Plus Group
  • New 60,000 square ft. co-educational senior school with emphasis on performing arts to open from 2025 
  • The Alpha Plus Group will enter a long-term lease to open The Wetherby Arts School in 2025, a co-educational senior school for children aged 11-18 
  • A partnership with The BRIT School will provide Saturday community classes 
  • Agreement will include launch of several community arts and education initiatives for children in the Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham 

Yoo Capital and Deutsche Finance International have signed an agreement with Alpha Plus Group to open a new, 60,000 square ft. performing arts educational space at Olympia, as part of the £1.3 billion regeneration of the West London cultural and entertainment district. 

The Alpha Plus Group will enter a long-term lease to open The Wetherby Arts School in 2025, a co-educational senior school for children aged 11-18. 

Like other Alpha Plus schools, Wetherby Arts will offer the Gold Standard in education, with added emphasis on the performing arts. The new school will be located in the space across 10 Beaconsfield Terrace and Emberton House and will feature high tech facilities, including classrooms enabled for hybrid teaching and learning, which will allow students to attend lessons on site or remotely at the same time. Students will have the use of a bespoke 9,000 sq ft theatre with a capacity of 200 seats. 

Underlining Olympia’s commitment to the local community, the agreement includes various educational, creative and cultural opportunities for residents both young and old. Alpha Plus Group is partnering with the BRIT School to make its teaching and performance spaces available for the running of BRIT Kids community classes every Saturday. Alpha Plus will also provide funding for some children to attend the BRIT Kids classes free of charge. 

John Hitchcox, Chairman of Yoo Capital said: “Our aim is to build a hub of creativity that encompasses all the arts at Olympia and that’s why we’re so excited to announce this agreement with the Alpha Plus Group. Not only will this bring a world class school to Olympia, but Wetherby’s partnership with the BRIT School will also provide local children with a crucial introduction to the creative industries, inspiring the next Adele, Jesse Jay or Tom Holland. We’re committed to making Olympia a place where arts and culture thrives and by bringing together these leading arts institutions – as well as announcing London’s first major theatre outside of the West End since the 1970s – Yoo Capital is doing just that.” 

Furthermore, the school will offer creative arts masterclasses to local schools and community groups by sharing facilities. It will also host an annual community arts festival. Meanwhile, Alpha Plus has committed to financing 12 bursaries and 22 scholarships for any interested student, regardless of their means, 50% of which will be reserved for pupils from Hammersmith and Fulham. 

Mark Hanley-Browne, CEO at Alpha Plus Group said: “This is a hugely exciting project for Alpha Plus and the BRIT school. In our own schools we have seen, at first hand, how music, art, design, drama and dance enhance educational excellence and help children to grow and develop through self-expression. Alpha Plus prides itself on providing excellence in learning across all key subjects, and providing the Gold Standard in education, and we are fully committed to bringing these unique, life changing opportunities to the children of Hammersmith and Fulham, with our partners The BRIT School.” 

Stuart Worden, Principal of The BRIT School said: “Having developed a very successful performing and creative arts school in South London that is now known around the world, we are excited about collaborating with a world class school in West London. We will create opportunities for local young people to train in performing and creative classes and we will be working with Alpha Plus Group on developing community classes, arts festivals and local projects that we hope will have a long lasting impact.”

Gavin Neilan, co-founder and co-managing partner of DFI, said: “Olympia is the archetypal mixed-use destination and will deliver best in class retail, hospitality and office space alongside its iconic exhibition centre. Visitors, tenants and the local community will all benefit from Olympia’s incredible facilities, including our world class theatre, which we hope will inspire students of The Wetherby Arts school for many years to come.” 

Lloyd Lee, Managing Partner at Yoo Capital said: “Our vision for Olympia has always been to create a world class cultural hub in West London, and that begins with investing in local, grass roots talent. Three years ago, we made a firm commitment to this ideal of building from ground up a unique public private partnership with Alpha Plus and BRIT to create this school for the arts. With the Council’s welcome support in sharing this vision, we believe this has potential to become a new model for how our firm can continue to invest into London communities in ways that are both socially responsible and fiscally responsible.” 

The £1.3bn redevelopment of Olympia – which will be completed in 2025 – includes a 4,400 capacity live music venue managed by AEG Presents; a 1,575-seat performing arts theatre for Trafalgar Entertainment; 100,000 sq ft of restaurants, bars and eateries; two globally renowned hotels – a Hyatt Regency and citizenM; 550,000 sq ft of offices and 2.5 acres of new public realm.

For More Info Contact:

Adrian Langan
Langan Communications
adrian@langancommunications.com

Notes to Editors

About Olympia 

The £1 billion regeneration of Olympia is set to be London’s newest cultural destination with a taste for the spectacular – uniting art, education, entertainment, technology and creative industries. Designed by a Heatherwick Studio and SPPARC Architecture, the rejuvenation of the capital’s busiest events venue – which attracts more than 1.6 million visitors each year – sees the addition of five live entertainment venues, a creative arts school, two globally renowned hotels, 20+ restaurants and eateries, creative offices and studios, and 2.5 acres of gardens and public realm. You can read more about the plans at www.olympia.co.uk, as well as the importance of sustainability to the development, in our ESG policy. 

About Alpha Plus Group 

Alpha Plus Group owns and operates twenty independent schools, nurseries and sixth form colleges. The creation of Wetherby Arts school at secondary school level is part of a future expansion programme which includes the creation of additional preparatory schools and nursery schools over the next few years. By providing excellence in learning, the Group enables children and young people to achieve their full potential in a challenging yet secure and caring environment. Alpha Plus stands for Gold Standard in educational provision. The group’s Gold Standard vision is reflected in a culture of high aspirations and expectations, and robust educational governance through which schools and colleges are simultaneously supported and challenged in their pursuit of excellence. 

https://wetherbyarts.alphaplusgroup.co.uk/ @Alpha_PlusGroup 

About BRIT School 

The BRIT School is the UK’s first and leading free performing and creative arts school for 1,400 young people aged 14 to 19. The School – an exempt charity based in Croydon – invests in the future of the UK’s cultural wealth by nurturing young artistic talent from all backgrounds and teaching the skills needed by the rapidly growing creative industries. 

BRIT stands for the British Record Industry Trust. Without the generosity of the record industry and funding from the BRIT Awards, the school would never have been built and its superb facilities would never have been installed.

The BRIT School celebrated its 30th year and over 10,000 students who have been educated at The BRIT School including Adele, Amy Winehouse, Jessie J, Katie Melua, Leona Lewis, Rex Orange County, Jade Bird, Freya Ridings and Kate Nash. In total, students from the School have been responsible for selling over 250m albums, billions of streams, won 15 BRIT Awards, 19 Grammys, 2 BAFTAS, 2 Oscars, a Laurence Olivier Award, a UK Theatre Award and a London Evening Standard Award. 

www.brit.croydon.sch.uk, @TheBRITSchool 

About Deutsche Finance International 

Deutsche Finance International is a pan-European private equity firm with €3 billion of assets under management, which specialises in customer centric and operational real estate. It pursues differentiated and thematic value add and select opportunistic strategies in order to deliver consistent and superior risk-adjusted returns through deep value investing, capitalising on trends and transforming under-managed and under-invested assets and operating companies through active asset management. The firm acts as the investment adviser to its discretionary funds and co-investment partners, and has a global institutional client base that includes pension funds, insurance companies, financial institutions and family offices. 

DFI is independently managed by its Founding Partners with a dedicated best-in-class multidisciplinary team operating across offices in London, Munich, Madrid and Luxembourg. It benefits from being part of the Deutsche Finance Group (“DFG”), a global investment management firm that specialises in private market real estate and infrastructure investments. DFG currently has €9.6 billion of assets

under management and is headquartered in Munich. DFG is privately owned and regulated by the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority of Germany, BaFin. 

www.deutsche-finance-international.com/ 

About Yoo Capital 

Yoo Capital Investment Management is a privately held real estate partnership between Yoo Capital and Astarte Capital Partners. Yoo Capital Fund II is the partnership’s first in a series of special opportunities UK real estate funds with a particular focus on London. Historically, Yoo Capital has invested over £2.5 billion into Central London since its formation in 2010 by international property entrepreneur John Hitchcox and private equity veteran Lloyd Lee. By combining transformational creativity with institutional-quality investment discipline in private equity, large-scale development and asset management, the firm specialises in transformational transactions in edge of prime and infill locations. In addition to the traditional asset classes of office, residential and retail, the firm has made its name through its significant experience in hospitality/creative industries and is also actively investing into life sciences/healthcare. 

The firm is comprised of extremely senior professionals with a firmwide average 20 years’ experience in private equity, complex asset and development management and institutional fund management that comprises in excess of £11bn of transactional experience. Yoo Capital Investment Management LLP is an Appointed Representative of Laven Advisors LLP, which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Additional information can be found at: www.yoocapital.com