Highly respected industry veteran joins forces with SCV, creating 100+ village group

Watch this space! Industry veteran Loretta Byers has joined forces with industry newcomer
Andrea Slingsby to revitalize the operations of the listed SCV Group, and at the same time
creating the largest village operator in Australia and New Zealand.
Loretta has sold her Village Care management company to SCV for a mix of cash and
shares, transferring to SCV the Village Care brand (which will continue), management of 18
villages plus 16 experienced staff in the operations of villages. Management of another 14
villages under development are scheduled to come along with Village Care over the next
8-12 months. All operate under the traditional DMF model and fall under the respective
Retirement Village Acts. SCV has 87 rental villages (not covered by the Retirement Villages
Act – a contentious issue for some in the industry) operating under the SunnyCove and
Village Life brands.
Loretta brings much needed credibility to SCV as she was almost a founding member of
the modern village industry, having been National Vice President and President of the
RVA over 4 years in the late 80’s/early 90’s and still active on various committees. Andrea
Slingsby has been at SCV and CEO for under 3 months but in that time has reduced HO
staff from 70 to 44 and revitalized management. She comes from Flight Centre where
she established and ran their US operations. SCV has been financially revitalized with the
backing of Michael Gordon, who made his fortune building and selling the 575 childcare
centre Peppercorn Group (to ABC Learning - at the right time), and a little known Sydney
boutique fund manager called Co-Invest who is backed by the Melbourne ex-steel family
of Victor Smorgon.