Students Squeezed An Extra 8.2% As Unite Group Makes Record Profits

Hello, you glorious beasts. 

This Week in Bunce: 

🏠 Unite Students increase student rent by 8.2% after paying £171 million to shareholders

🐔 Why being nice to chickens is making eggs more expensive

⚽ A slave probably made your fake football shirt

P.S. Loads of your subscription services will give you a fat discount if you just threaten to cancel…

We’ve gathered 27 of them here (Amazon Prime, Virgin/Sky, Grammarly—actually useful stuff).

But enough of this mindless prattle—to business. 

We begin with… 

Unite Students Increases Rent AGAIN After Making Record Profits

After a year of record-breaking profits, Unite Students plans to raise student rents again by at least 4%. 

In 2024, the UK’s largest student housing provider grew revenue by 8.4% to £299.3 million, quadrupling pre-tax profits. 

Of course, their record profits didn’t come from the Magic Money Tree—the listed company raised student rents by 8.2% that year. 

And CEO Joe Lister ensured investors had a lovely time. 

According to documents submitted to the London Stock Exchange, the Unite Group paid roughly £171 million to their shareholders in 2024.

Yes, you read that right. And they plan to do it again in 2025. 

Their press release on the London Stock Exchange reads: “We plan to distribute 80% of adjusted EPS as dividends for the 2025 financial year.”

Thanks, Joe, for giving something back to shareholders. 

The question then is:

Who owns the Unite Group?

The Unite Group is a publicly traded FTSE 100 company, one of the highest-performing companies in the U.K.

The shareholders (the people making money from increased student rents) include Canadian pensioners, Norwegian citizens (via the sovereign wealth fund), and a financial group once described as “the secret world power”. 

Student rent is a joke

It’s easy to be outraged: the Unite Group is doing this during a cost of living crisis.

Student rent is already prohibitively expensive. 

Rents in private student housing have increased at nearly twice the rate of university-owned options. 

It’s worst in London, where the average annual student rental now outstrips the maximum total maintenance loan. All of it.

Q: So why is Unite doing this? 

A: Because they can. 

Private developers are cashing in

There’s a chronic shortage of student accommodation but more demand, driven by increasing numbers of international students.

Joe Lister (CEO): “We have seen a strong start to the 2025/26 sales cycle, highlighting the continued demand for our high-quality accommodation from both students and universities.”

Blah, blah, corporate blah. 

The Unite Group is not the only private developer milking the student housing crisis. There was a record £473 million in deals in 2024. 

And universities are complicit. 

Unable to provide enough accommodation, they partner with private developers in joint ventures like the recent £250 million deal agreed between Newcastle University and Unite Students.

Why Being Nice to Chickens Makes Eggs More Expensive

Eggs got 20% more expensive this year because we’re nice to chickens. 

For a few reasons. Firstly:

Avian genocide

The HPIA bird flu virus decimated the bird population worldwide, forcing poultry farmers to slaughter millions more birds than usual. 

It’s normally present in wild birds which is why there are now more dead seagulls in the UK. 

But it affected a particular population of chickens: free-range hens. 

Free-range hens frolic in the open air, so they’re more likely to catch the virus from wild birds—in short, because they eat their shit and peck their corpses. 

Supply v demand

Fewer chickens means fewer eggs—but people still want eggs. 

People. Love. Eggs.

Consumer demand for free-range eggs has increased every year. Most recent stats show that 37 million eggs are consumed daily in the UK. 

Facing a shortage, farmers increased prices, and then supermarkets increased prices—up 27% on average since January 2025.

And it could get much worse. 

Consumer bite back

We’ve already seen it play out in the US, where it got so bad that Americans were paying 8 dollars for a dozen eggs. 

The feds are even investigating the poultry farmers, suspicious that they’re holding egg-lovers to ransom. Trump got involved (naturally), vowing to bring down the price of eggs. 

Outraged by the scandalous prices, Americans stopped buying eggs. And, within 2 weeks, supermarkets slashed egg prices in half. 

What’s the lesson here, you glorious beasts? 

Never. Trust. Chickens. 

#boycotteggs

A slave probably made your fake football shirt

With the average price for a Premier League shirt an obscene £73, it’s unsurprising that swathes of fans have turned to Temu for alternatives.

In a survey by The Athletic, 78% reported knowingly buying a knock-off—with 66% saying they’d do it again.

And while a shirt for 8 quid might sound like a great deal, most aren’t aware of the hidden costs.

These shirts are largely coming from unregulated factories with links to human trafficking and modern-day slavery. It’s a £180 million black market, basically.

So—what to do?

While Premier League clubs unanimously refuse to engage with calls for a shirt price cap, Brentford are leading the way.

Their decision in 2023 to only refresh their shirts every 2 years effectively halved the cost for fans.

But with shirt sales representing a huge slice of merchandising revenue for clubs, I won’t hold my breath for others to follow suit.

My approach has always been to buy a ‘classic’ shirt—if it’s retro, it’s never out-of-date.

One final thing… 

Do you rent from Unite Students? 

We want to hear from you. 

Until next time, you glorious beasts.

Okay everyone, crisis over!