Recently, Reno Sio, Institutional Real Estate, In’s managing director, Asia Pacific, spoke with Andrew Heithersay, managing director and partner of SC Capital Partners, and Tim Russell, director and co-founder of Aura Holdings. Following is an excerpt of that conversation.
Could you both give us a little background about yourselves and your firms?
Andrew Heithersay: I am a managing director, partner and investment committee member of SC Capital Partners (SCCP). I joined the firm in 2013, and my primary responsibility is to invest capital across our RECAP Fund series. I have been based in Asia since 1997, and prior to joining SCCP, I was one of the three founding members of LaSalle Investment Management’s Asia Pacific team.
Tim Russell: I am the director and co-founder of Aura Holdings, which my business partner Mark Taylor and I launched in 2016. The Aura strategy is a greenfield strategy to develop retirement villages in South East Queensland. Prior to that, I was the founder and managing director of another retirement village business known as Retire Australia, which I started in 2005.
SC Capital Partners has been increasing its exposure to Australia’s senior living market since 2017. What attracted you to this sector?
Heithersay: SCCP’s investment thematic is to invest in sectors that are driven by long-term underlying occupational demand and are resilient through cycles, such as logistics, data centres, education and senior living. Senior living is a sector we have spent several years evaluating how to best capture the real estate opportunities arising from the ageing demographic. When we met Tim and Mark in 2017, we found they had a very like-minded approach, with the thesis that seniors are enthusiastic about downsizing, but not downgrading. There was a real market gap to develop upscale, medium-density retirement living in established affluent locations, where seniors could maintain their social linkages with the community, family and friends.
Read the full interview at the link below
