Octopus Healthcare said on Thursday it has raised a further £133.5 mln (€150 mln) for its Octopus Healthcare Fund and, separately, also agreed a deal to acquire seven care homes in the UK.
The UK healthcare specialist said the latest fundraising, from new and existing institutional investors, takes the total equity raised for the fund to £320 mln since its launch in August 2017.
The asset transaction involves a portfolio of six purpose-built care homes let on long leases to Care UK, the UK’s largest independent provider of health and social care, for around £110 mln (€124 mln). In addition, the Octopus Healthcare Fund has agreed to forward fund the development of a new elderly care home in the Midlands to be leased to a national operator. The acquisitions take the fund’s total portfolio to 26 care homes.
The partnership with Care UK on the existing homes – located in Banbury, Cheltenham, Horsham, Norwich, Ware and Witney – brings the total number of care homes operating under the alliance to eight. Care UK was represented by CBRE throughout the transaction.
Ben Penaliggon, director at Octopus Healthcare, commented: ‘This significant new capital raise for the Octopus Healthcare Fund and the acquisitions we have announced today are a strong endorsement of both our ability to source and acquire high quality UK care homes, of the appeal of this asset class to investors, and the highly supportive demographic trends that drive it.’
Hiti Singh, head of institutional investment at Octopus, noted: ‘The strong fundamentals of healthcare infrastructure investment, including the sustainable, inflation-linked income, risk-adjusted returns and supportive demographics, continue to attract institutional investor demand. 45% of investors in our recent Healthcare Infrastructure survey indicated that they lack the investor skills and resources to invest in this asset class. This creates an opportunity for us to build on our long-standing track record in this area and unlock an opportunity for investors who have an appetite to increase their allocations in healthcare infrastructure.’
