Last Thursday in Melbourne we staged our regular Westpac Conversations luncheon where one predominant topic was the increasing number of parties seeking to provide funding for retirement village development.
Noral Wild (pictured right), International Director, Head of Alternatives – APAC, at Cushman & Wakefield, informed us that she personally receives three to four international enquiries each week from groups seeking to provide property and development funds in Australia, with open interest in retirement living.
And as Kaizaad Mehta (pictured below), Head of Healthcare and Industry at Westpac explained, existing village operators are charging forward to redevelop existing residential care projects into retirement living, backed by home care services. The bank finds this particularly appealing because they are seasoned village operators.
Anne McCormack (pictured left above), and CEO of mecwacare, with 18 residential aged care homes and six villages, talked about the home care workforce challenge and the attraction of villages where staff are most efficient.
Which is the message in today’s newsletter from RFBI (Royal Freemasons Benevolent Institute), where CEO Frank Price says he wants to create a closed-loop system where retirement villages deliver all his home care clients and all his residential care clients. He is not building any more aged care beds but has at least seven new and redevelopment village projects on the go.
And you’ll see this level of activity in every second story of The SOURCE this week, by experienced and new village operators. And this requires funding at scale.
With Frank Price stating his retirement village business is “going gangbusters”, it’s no surprise that Kaizaad says Westpac’s lending book to the sector is also growing fast.
Positive times.
Optimism is the theme of the LEADERS SUMMIT 2024, which is being held at the Hyatt Regency in Sydney, on Tuesday 19th and Wednesday 20th March, 2024. Over two days, 40 leading executives in the retirement living, home care and residential aged care sectors will review their vision, business strategies and models.
