AXA Investment Managers - Real Assets has entered the Australia healthcare property market via a partnership with Grosvenor Group and Sydney-based Centuria Capital Group.
AXA, Grosvenor Group and Centuria’s new subsidiary Centuria Heathley have set up the Australian Diversified Healthcare Fund (ADHF) to build and hold a A$500m (€308.4m) healthcare property portfolio across Australia.
AXA IM and Grosvenor will be equal partners, holding 94% of the fund between them. Centuria Heathley will take a minority stake of 6%.
ADHF would be seeded with two hospitals in Queensland - the Mater Private Hospital in Townsville and The Westside Private Hospital in Brisbane – together valued at A$88m.
Jason Huljich, Centuria Group’s joint CEO, told IPE Real Assets that the new ADHF venture represented the group’s largest institutional mandate to date.
The platform had come together almost coincidentally, with all three parties seeking to enter the healthcare sector.
Centuria today settled on an agreement announced in May to buy a 63% stake in Heathley, a long-time specialist healthcare property fund manager, to create Centuria Healthley, which will be managed by Centuria.
Centuria’s joint CEO, John McBain, said healthcare was a fast-growing sector globally.
“We are pleased that the announcement of the establishment of Centuria Heathley coincides with the announcement of the partnership with AXA IM and Grosvenor,” he said.
Huljich said the group had sought to diversify away from its core investments in commercial and industrial, and that healthcare had come up through an opportunity to buy into Heathley.
Two months ago, he said, the group had begun working with AXA IM, which had been seeking to increase its exposure to healthcare because of its positive outlook on long-term prospects for the sector.
Huljich said Grosvenor, which already had exposure to healthcare globally, had been an existing investor in Heathley.
