Mark Bindon and fellow Oak Tree Group co-founder Franco De Pasquale spent two years researching the retirement sector before setting up the business in 2004.
Oak Tree Group grew to own and operate 31 retirement villages across Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, and Tasmania. The operator had a pipeline of more than 1,000 independent living units when Aware Super – already a major shareholder – bought the co-founders out in August 2023.
Mark told the LEADERS SUMMIT 2024 that the retirement sector is the "singularly most fulfilling thing that I have ever done in my 35 years of business".
"We will be starting to get busy again fairly soon and, as they say, we will be hastening slowly,” he said.
Mark told the delegates that the retirement village model is not broken but it needs tweaking.
"Our focus will be infill development with the target the top of the wealth market driven in part by the cost of construction. The sad reality is that there are loads of areas where we cannot make it work,” he said.
"Everyone said when we started Oak Tree, ‘you can't make 50 and 60-unit developments work’. Well, we could.
"This will be more boutique; we're talking about 20 to 35 high-end apartments in high value jurisdictions. We think concierge."
"If you are a pure-play retirement village operator, and that's what we are going to do, we are not in the care business let's be clear,” he said, adding that he will work with home care operators as Oak Tree does.
