History will show that Simon Owen’s career in the retirement village and land lease communities’ sectors has been transformative. He has led two small village operators to being listed in the ASX and taken Ingenia from an unloved basket case to a thriving $1.65 billion sector leader.
Notice of his resignation as CEO of Ingenia for 14 years was announced before Ingenia Communities' AGM last Friday. He is aged 55.
Across a career of 20 years, his work ethic and drive to create new opportunities has reshaped the retirement village sector, the rental village sector and manufactured homes sector – now the land lease communities sector.
Simon entered the retirement village sector in 2003, aged 34, as the Chief Operating Officer of the Hibernian Friendly Society with a small number of NSW retirement villages. Within 12 months, he merged as the CEO, demutualised Hibernian and took it public under the new brand Aevum.
As a listed company, he started acquiring villages at what others thought inflated prices, especially the seven village Sakkara group. He was vindicated when Stockland raided their share registry to buy the now 30-village Aevum for $270 million.
Now out on his own and President of the Retirement Village Association, he stepped in as CEO to shepherd it and the RVA and sector through the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC).
In 2009 he joined the ING Community Living Group, a listed real estate investment trust that had crashed in the GFC, with money losing rental villages, the Settlers retirement villages group, student accommodation in Australia and New Zealand, and retirement villages in the US.
He set about cleaning this portfolio, ending up with just the rental and retirement villages, and by 2012 he convinced the unitholders to trust him to create Ingenia. This meant both ING and mum and dad investors had to swap out of ING and move into the new entity Ingenia, in effect controlled by Simon Owen. They agreed.
Ingenia at birth was valued at $30 million. Thirteen years later it is valued at $1.65 billion. Simon Owen has multiplied its value by 54 times in 13 years.
In 2013, Ingenia looked to manufactured homes for the first time and today leads the sector for product innovation and development pipeline.
Along the journey, Ingenia has made rental villages both profitable for the first time in a decade, and a valued product that delivers safe, quality housing to the people who are in most need.
Importantly, Ingenia under his leadership, led the acceptance of Australian land lease communities as an investment grade property sector in Asia and America. This has paved the way for other land lease operators like GemLife and Serenitas to get funding for their growth.
Simon tells us that it has been an amazing journey, made possible by his Chairman Jim Hazel, and the team he has at Ingenia.
He leaves the group over the next month while they find a new CEO. He says he will take a break and then look for new opportunities, without the time pressures of leading a public company.
Given what he has achieved in the past 10 years, he has another decade until he is 65. It will be an interesting journey to watch.
Edition 1195
