Australian industry fund Aware Super has agreed to buy an additional 24.9% of the Lendlease Retirement Living Trust for A$490m (€329m).
Aware Super acquired an initial 25% interest in the entity a year ago for A$460m.
Upon completion, Aware Super will hold a 49.9% interest, with Lendlease owning 25.1% and Dutch pension asset manager APG Asset Management holding the remaining 25%.
Lendlease Retirement Living is one of Australia’s largest owners, operators and developers of retirement villages. It has a portfolio of 75 retirement villages.
With today’s investment, Aware Super had lifted its portfolio of retirement living to A$1.4bn, said Alek Misev, senior portfolio manager of property at Aware Super. It accounted for around 30% of its total assets in the living sector.
Misev told IPE Real Assets: “We are now the largest investor in the retirement sector in Australia. The Lendlease business is a metro play. Its properties are located in the urban areas of capital cities.
“We also have a retirement business, Oaktree Retirement Villages, which operates in regional Australia. It is a much smaller business. The two business can co-exist very well,”
Misev said the fund intended to grow the two retirement living businesses under its broader living strategy, which was now a key part of the group’s portfolio allocation.
“We will look at more development and potentially also mergers and acquisitions in future,” he said.
Lendlease said the latest transaction further strengthened the relationship between Lendlease and Aware Super, including the Lendlease Americas Residential Partnership which invests in projects in Chicago, Boston, New York and Los Angeles.
Lendlease Global CEO, Tony Lombardo, said: “Strategically, we flagged some time ago our intent to further reduce our ownership of retirement living, consistent with our strategy to reallocate capital towards the delivery of our A$112bn development pipeline and to grow our investments platform.”
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