HMC Capital has raised an initial A$650m (€392m) for its healthcare and life sciences real estate fund.
The ASX-listed manager secured equity commitments totalling A$251m from 3 global institutional investors and A$322m from the listed HealthCo Healthcare & Wellness REIT.
HMC Capital managing director and group CEO, David Di Pilla, told IPE Real Assets that a domestic superannuation fund was conducting due diligence on the fund to take up the remaining tranche of A$75m in the capital raise.
The other investors in the fund, Healthcare and Life Sciences (UHF) Unlisted real estate fund, included a sovereign wealth fund, the pension fund of a large multinational and a US multi-asset manager.
He said the capital was already fully deployed on the seed portfolio, but it had the capacity for A$300m of brownfield development, to expand some of the assets. On completion, the fund’s portfolio would be valued at A$1.3bn.
UHF, launched in March, would initially own a portfolio of 7 acute care hospitals leased to Australian operator Healthscope.
Although an emerging asset class, Di Pilla said healthcare real estate and infrastructure was underpinned by a positive megatrend – aging and growing population and under-investment in healthcare real estate and infrastructure in all OECD countries, including Australia, that would call for a bigger role for private capital to fund this sector.
“We have momentum, and we obviously see potential to grow the fund in Australia. In addition, later this year we expect to provide some details on the launch of a global healthcare fund.”
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