Property fund manager Centuria has taken a controlling 63.06% in Heathley, which specialises in healthcare real estate including aged care property, medical centres and day hospitals and has around $600 million-plus in assets.

The deal is expected to enable Heathley, which suspended its $528 million listing of its Heathley Healthcare REIT on the ASX in November last year, to bring forward its acquisition pipeline and accelerate the growth of its funds.

As we covered here, Heathley committed $50 million in 2016 to Tamar Krebs’ innovative dementia home provider to facilitate the roll-out of new homes.

They also partnered with family-owned private provider Hall & Prior in March last year to buy and redevelop a 49-bed aged care home into a new 120-bed facility in Perth.

It’s also a new direction for Centuria, which has mostly focused on office and industrial property.

Under the transaction, which expected to close by 11 October 2019, the two have formed a new company Centuria Heathley Limited with the board of directors to include three directors each from Centuria and Heathley.

Heathley’s John Stuckey (pictured, right) will remain as Chairman while Andrew Hemming (pictured, left) will stay as a Director and CEO of the new group.