The Ramsay Foundation and Melbourne-based Conscious Investment Management have teamed up to invest $48 million into disability accommodation, a specialist housing sector which is gaining scale through the increasing attention from institutional players and family offices.
Playing a key role in bringing the deal together is social impact investment house For Purpose Investment Partners, co-founded by prominent venture capitalist Mark Carnegie and Michael Traill. Former National Australia Bank boss Andrew Thorburn joined the outfit earlier this year as well.
On the receiving end is Summer Housing, an early mover in the emerging sector, which will direct the funds into 60 specialist disability units.
"By investing in disability housing alongside Summer Housing, we can significantly improve our residents’ quality of lives," said Conscious Investment's Matthew Tominc.
"We hope to grow this partnership to continue to help address the acute accommodation under-supply for people living with disability."
The commitments from Ramsay and CIM's Impact Fund – former Swisse boss Radek Sali is one of several family office investors backing the fund – will help fund the creation of purpose-built apartments across a number of developments under way in Melbourne Adelaide and Brisbane.
Already Summer Housing has raised more than $300 million from a variety of sources, with 370 dwellings financed. Institutional investors are moving into the sector: Macquarie is among the early birds along with boutique investment house Lighthouse Infrastructure.The housing is specially developed for people living with a disability, with rental streams backed by the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Industry forecasts are expecting the creation of a $5 billion asset class.
There is a large unmet demand. Some 28,000 people – around 6 per cent of those who fall under the NDIS – will require the specialist housing. Taking into account existing facilities, it is estimated new dwellings will be required to accommodate 12,300 participants in the scheme.
So far some 980 new or refurbished SDA dwellings have been created, with a little more than 4000 dwellings enrolled in the scheme. When fully exercised, the housing scheme payments are expected to total $750 million annually, with just 20 per cent of that being paid out so far.
Summer Housing chief executive chief Dan McLennan pointed out the particularly grim situation for more than 5000 people, all under the age of 65, who are forced to live in nursing homes because there are no other appropriate housing options.
The freshly minted agreement with the impact investment consortium would give at least some of those people "the choice to live on their own, or with someone of their choosing, with independence and with the ability to fully participate in the community", Mr Mclennan said.
While Summer Housing's effort has so far been focused within existing larger apartment projects in capital cities, it is keen to extend that.
"How can we come up with scalable solutions that enable institutional capital to be applied toward creating housing not just in capital cities but throughout the whole of Australia. It is a problem that isn’t confined to our cities," Mr McLennan told The Australian Financial Review.
"We’ve got a long way to go in terms of existing pipeline and the market itself still has a lot of scope for growth. I think every institutional investor we’ve engaged with has appetite for significant scale in the market. They are keen for the production of opportunities to finance."
Article via The Australian Financial Review: https://www.afr.com/property/residential/powerbrokers-make-impact-in-disability-accommodation-20200817-p55miz
We applaud the UN Principles for Responsible Investment, the Global Sustainable Investment Alliance and the CFA Institute's jointly released definitions on 1 November 2023, particularly the clarity on impact investing. They say that impact investing “requires a ‘theory of change’ – that is, a credible explanation of the investor’s contributory and/or catalytic role, as distinct from the investee’s impact”.
As this Investment Magazine article suggests, it is not enough to just allocate capital to investees that have a net positive impact, and true impact investment should clearly be able to demonstrate its additionality.
At For Purpose Investment Partners, every investment we make requires a robust theory of change and clear demonstration of the additionality of our capital. With our FY23 Impact Report, we sought to set a benchmark for transparency among Australian impact investment managers, and are pleased to see our work referenced in this article.
Check out our FY23 Impact Report to find out more.
For Purpose Aged Care Australia Chair Toby Hall sat down with Vidit Agarwal on The High Flyers Podcast, to talk about his childhood and school experiences in the UK and South Africa that taught him to question everything, his early career in accounting and investment banking at the Salomon Brothers, his leadership training in New Zealand and transition to CEO and Board roles in Australia.
He discusses his leadership principles, how to have an impact in new sectors, the power of listening and storytelling and helping people thrive.
For Purpose Investment Partners (FPIP) is delighted to announce that it has committed $4.0m in debt financing for the first project in Beacon Hill, NSW, which will fund the construction of three specialist disability accommodation (SDA) houses for 8 NDIS participants, on land owned by the Anglican Church Growth Corporation (ACGC). This transaction has been undertaken in partnership with the Sustainable Development Group (SDG), a mission driven development and advisory organisation established to redevelop the excess land of faith-based organisations.
Construction of the houses has begun and is expected to be completed by early 2024, which will provide disability accommodation in an area of high need, with easy access to public transport, and with shopping precincts and healthcare facilities located close by.
For Purpose Investment Partners Executive Director Tim Shaw said “we are very excited to partner with SDG and the Anglican Church in funding this SDA development. Given high land values in Sydney’s northern beaches, very limited SDA dwellings have been constructed to meet the high demand in this area. We are very pleased to be able to overcome this significant barrier to entry by partnering with mission aligned groups like the landowner ACGC and SDG.“
SDG Chief Commercial Officer Jai Sharma commented “we are delighted that the FPIP team were able to move quickly to fund this development. Working with a values-aligned partner was key in overcoming the complexities of the transaction.”
ACGC CEO Ross Jones added “we think the Anglican Church’s Sydney Diocese has an important offering in the SDA sector where much of the supply of housing stock has occurred on the metropolitan urban fringes because of the high cost of land. We have land right across the Diocese, enabling us to provide SDA in areas relatively close to family support. We have more of these and other social infrastructure projects planned for integration on church land. We look forward to further partnerships with FPIP on those.”
Casa Capace is the SDA Provider, and will source the eight tenants for their state of the art designed homes. Fighting Chance are the supported independent living (SIL) provider for the development.
About Sustainable Development Group
Sustainable Development Group is a mission-driven not-for-profit real estate development and advisory organisation, established to redevelop the excess land of faith-based organisations.
SDG catalyse and bring together aligned consortiums of landowners, commercial investors/funders and long-term tenants to activate sites and drive outcomes that are sustainable for the long-term.
About Anglican Church Growth Corporation
Anglican Church Growth Corporation is an entity within the Anglican Diocese of Sydney whose purpose is to develop strategy and assist in the provision of resources for ministry initiatives involving the acquisition or development of property in greenfield and existing urban areas.
About For Purpose Investment Partners
For Purpose Investment Partners is a not-for-profit social impact investment manager, created to pursue an important mission; bringing private sector capital and capabilities into sizeable businesses and projects to create significant social impact.
For Purpose Investment Partners acknowledges and pays respect to the past, present and future Traditional Custodians and Elders of this nation and the continuation of cultural, spiritual and educational practices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
We believe that diversity, equity and inclusion at For Purpose Investment Partners are critical in our efforts to create significant social impact. Diversity in the team allows us to better represent the diversity of thought and experiences of the communities that we are aiming to serve, promotes a healthy and thriving working environment, and delivers innovative and sustainable outcomes for our communities, our people, our investors and our partners.
