Legal & General, PGGM in 600 mln stg Build-to-Rent deal

LONDON, Jan 27 (Reuters) - British insurer Legal & General (LSE: LGEN.L - news) and Dutch pension fund manager PGGM on Wednesday said they were joining forces to build thousands of homes in the UK under a build-to-rent partnership.

The partnership would initially invest 600 million pounds ($859.08 million) to build more than 3,000 private rental housing units, the groups said in a statement.

"The UK rental market, compared to the US and Europe, is dysfunctional, with ever increasing rents and increasingly poor accommodation," Paul Stanworth, managing director of Legal & General Capital said.

"For this to change, and renting to become more affordable, we need to invest in the 'new', and build new homes to rent, and just stop inflating the prices of old housing stock." ($1 = 0.6984 pounds) (Reporting by Simon Jessop; Editing by Maiya Keidan and Louise Heavens)