Aged Care Operator Makes $11m Victorian Sector Debut

An Queensland-headquartered aged-care operator is making its first foray into the Victorian market with the acquisition of a vacant facility at Windsor. 

MA Financial-backed Infinite Care has bought the facility at 241 Dandenong Road for $11.75 million.

The site was formerly an aged-care facility operated by Estia Health.

It was last sold in 2022, and the sale marks a 16 per cent uplift on the previous transaction.

The site about 7km south-east of the Melbourne CBD will be converted into a 60-bed Infinite Care site set to open in mid-2025. 

According to Infinite Care joint managing directors Tony Partridge and Chris Stride, it would complement another 177-bed home at Knoxfield due to open in late 2025.

The operator has more than a dozen aged-care facilities, largely in Queensland, South Australia and New South Wales. The acquisition marks its first operation in Victoria.

▲ According to CBRE’s Jimmy Tat, the aged-care market has an average occupancy of 90 per cent.

CBRE’s Australian Healthcare and Social Infrastructure team of Sandro Peluso, Marcello Caspani-Muto and Jimmy Tat managed the sale, and said it was one of the “highest quality” vacant offerings in recent years. 

“We have seen a positive trajectory of growth across the aged-care sector over the past 12 months,” Tat said in a media statement. 

“This drive for growth is also attracting international investors who have been waiting for the right opportunity to enter the market.”

Aged care has been gathering momentum in recent years across the country, with two NSW transactions recently agreed for $59 million. 

▲ The recently sold Highfields Manor Aged Care is a 107-bed aged-care facility that opened in July 2022.

Agents Colliers sold the two sites, Highfields Manor Aged Care at 1 Highfields Circuit in Port Macquarie and the Palms Nursing Home at 454 President Avenue, Kirrawee, recently, which Colliers Healthcare and Retirement Living national director Chris O’Driscoll said was due to a lack of residential stock nationally.

“With a critical housing supply shortage, against a backdrop of significant immigration and population growth and low residential vacancy rates, aged care should be part of the housing solution, but the cost of construction has limited the amount of new stock coming to market,” O’Driscoll said.

“However, over the past 12 months we have seen the market gaining momentum, with growth in the number of facilities exchanging.”

According to KPMG’s latest report on aged care in Australia, residential aged-care services supported 190,683 people last year, a 2.4 per cent increase from the year prior.

However, the industry also recorded a 5.2 per cent decrease in providers and a 1.4 per cent increase in vacancies, which the advisory firm put down to consolidation as a result of regulatory and financial pressures.