This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
AMP Capital Investors has teamed up with Queensland based property group Meridien to invest in the retirement villages industry.
The parties will jointly own a new $1 billion retirement and asset management company, AMP Capital Meridien Lifestyle, which will have an initial portfolio of 19 retirement villages across Australia, underpinned New South Wales based Glen Group portfolio, purchased late last year.
The AMP Capital Meridien Lifestyle operating business will be based in Brisbane and the chief executive will be Glen Brown, formerly a senior executive at one of Australia’s largest retirement village operators.
Meridien’s executive chairman David Roberts said the formation of a joint venture with AMP Capital Investors had created the second largest retirement village operator in the country.
Over the last 12 months Meridien has acquired a national portfolio of both property assets and business operations totalling approximately 4000 completed and development pipeline units across South Australia, Queensland and NSW.
“Meridien’s primary focus is to own, manage and be the best in sectors in which we truly believe can provide long term property and management solutions. We’re keen to combine our core skills with AMP Capital Investors’ property funds management capabilities.
“The retirement sector was firmly on our radar because it’s been a somewhat fragmented industry in the past. We’re confident Meridien’s development and management expertise will support our objective to become the provider of choice in the sector,” Roberts said.
Roberts said the group was approached by numerous potential partners but AMP Capital Investors shared the group’s intrinsic long term investment views.
AMP Capital Investors’ head of property funds management Andrew Bennett said the company’s research had identified the retirement living sector as an emerging, fast-growth sector given demographic and lifestyle trends.
In 2001, 2.3 million Australians were aged over 65 with this figure projected to almost double to 4.5 million by 2021. Further, only 3% of Australians live in retirement villages compared with 10% in the United States.
“Our research has identified that it is an investment sector that is likely to deliver attractive long term returns.
“The joint venture supplements AMP Capital’s commitment to the retirement village sector following its acquisition of a large New Zealand retirement village portfolio, The Summerset Group, in early 2006,” Bennett concluded.
Australian Property Journal
