AXA Real Estate is building a Spanish hospital on behalf of a large US pension fund and New York-listed Medical Properties Trust (MPT).
The real estate investment manager has bought a 4,300sqm development plot in Valencia to build a 36,000sqm medical facility.
AXA Real Estate did not name the pension fund, but it said the investment was the first undertaken as part of a new partnership with MPT.
AXA Real Estate will target healthcare investments, primarily in Western Europe and the Nordics for the US company.
A pre-let agreement for the Valencia hospital has been reached with Spanish operator IMED Hospitales, which hopes to serve 150,000 patients a year.
The plot of land already has a completed concrete core on which AXA Real Estate will build 210 private patient rooms, 15 intensive care units, 87 outpatient surgeries and 15 operating theatres.
Hideki Kurata, head of alternatives and special situations at AXA Real Estate, said: “As a sector, healthcare is underpinned by robust demographic and social fundamentals.”
In 2012, AXA Real Estate launched an alternatives platform and said it planned to increase its alternative assets under management from €740m to €1.5bn by 2015.
Kurata said it now manages more than €2.5bn of alternative assets, including healthcare facilities, hotels, data centres and forestry assets, primarily in Europe.
“Our partnership with MPT will prove invaluable as we continue to source healthcare properties which will allow us to continue to strengthen our alternatives platform,” he said.
