In a move that will shake the retirement living sector for the next five years, the world’s largest manufactured home operator, Sun Communities, has made its first investment outside of North America, taking up 9.99% of Ingenia.
A $6 billion community operator and REIT headquartered in Michigan, Sun has also entered into a strategic partnership to fund greenfield acquisition and development.
Sun’s CEO of 40 years Gary Shiffman is joining the Ingenia board.
Ingenia CEO Simon Owen tells us that Sun has expressed an ‘insatiable’ appetite to invest capital in new development with Ingenia.
With the softening of the Australian property market Owen is already experiencing an increase in property deals being presented. He says the backing of Sun funds will allow Ingenia ‘to go out hard’, securing the best sites and accelerating their already successful retirement living models.
“We have an exciting runway in front of us. We have built more resources than the other three major (LLC) operators put together for growth”.
“We have over 25 people in development, 15 in sales, six in acquisitions and 12 in marketing. We have been building our business for volume; now we can execute quickly”.
The strategic partnership calls for each of Ingenia and Sun to contribute 50% of development capital with Ingenia collecting project management fees and having the option to purchase a project at market valuation when it is 95% sold down.
Owen reemphasised that his immediate KPI is to hit 350 settlements this financial year. He points out that October was their strongest month ever for issuing contracts and taking deposits.
Tomorrow we will issue a special edition outlining the significance of this transaction on the Australian retirement living marketplace.
