AU acquires Knoxfield aged care complex

The multi-level aged care home will contain 177 suites.

Australian Unity Healthcare Trust has bought into a Knoxfield aged care complex.

The unlisted fund will pay $10.75 million for the 1.27 hectare site, 145-153 Bunjil Way.

It will additionally invest $54.25m by way of a loan to complete its construction.

The operator, Infinite Care, will repay the advance within four years of the 177-bed multi-level facility being completed – expected to be in 2023.

It has also signed a long lease – expiring in 2048.

The Bunjil Road site previously traded three years ago for $11.825m.

Knoxfield is 33 kilometres south east of Melbourne.

More to come: AU

AU said its loan to Infinite Care is on commercial terms and at an arms length basis.

“Australia’s aged care sector will provide increasingly attractive real estate opportunities for investors in the Healthcare Property Trust,” general manager, Healthcare Property, Chris Smith, said (story continues below).

“Just last week the opportunity for investment in aged care real estate was once again made clear in the release of the Intergenerational Report,” he added.

“These critical social infrastructure assets deliver for investors while providing core community services”.

The Knoxfield purchase, as well as a recent sale of four lots in Queensland’s Mackay Medical Centre and Day Surgery are indicative of market strength and capitalisation rate compression.

“The sale of the Mackay Medical Centre for $16.7m – at a significant premium to book value – demonstrates continued demand for well-managed health and medical real estate assets,” he said.

“Eight of the trust’s properties were independently valued during June, 2021, with a net increase of $1.56 million or 3.65 per cent from…book value”.

The trust is nearing exchange for another $60m of product.

More property, worth $90m, is at the due diligence stage of negotiation, a company statement added.

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Marc Pallisco

A former property analyst and print journalist, Marc is the publisher of realestatesource.com.au.