It was just two years ago in June 2021 that ex-Lendlease CFO Tarun Gupta became Managing Director and CEO of Stockland. Seven months later, in February last year, he sold its retirement living business, our third largest village player, to Swedish investment firm EQT Infrastructure (EQT) for $987 million, and set his sights on the land lease sector.
Last week, 18 months later, Stockland stated it will be the land lease leader in Australia, well on the way to build 1,000 land lease homes a year and a business trending to a valuation of $5.2 billion.
After paying $210 million to buy five land lease communities from Living Gems, Stockland expects to have 12,000 home sites by the end of next year.
“With this acquisition it takes our portfolio to just over 10,500 home sites, of which about 2,300 of them are occupied, and then the rest are in the pipeline,” Stockland Communities’ CEO Andrew Whitson told the Financial Review.
Apart from acquisitions, Stockland is slicing off land from their Master Planned Communities (MPC) land bank. This is also allowing accelerated DA approvals.
Stockland expects to launch five new land lease communities in VIC, NSW and QLD and expand into NSW (The Gables) and WA over the next 12 months. In addition, it has 14 longer-dated LLC development sites.
By Christmas next year, Stockland could have between 1,500 and 2,000 home sites approved, under construction or completed in Victoria and a further 8,000 to 10,000 in Queensland.
Market leader Ingenia Communities has 4,200 existing sites with 6,000 in development.
THE SOURCE: Stockland is a demonstration of how big business balance sheets can disrupt retirement living and aged care almost overnight.
