Simon Owen sees many similarities with Eureka to when he took the CEO role at Ingenia Communities, 12 years ago.
"There are many attributes of Eureka which remind me of the early days at my last role with the ING Community Living Fund / Ingenia. Eureka’s market cap is approximately $165 million whereas Ingenia (where I remain a large and supportive shareholder) now exceeds $2 billion,” he said. (When Simon took over Ingenia it was valued at $30 million).
Eureka Group Holdings, which has 52 villages and 2,882 units under management, suffers from the same lack of capital investment Ingenia faced before Simon turned it into the operator with the biggest land lease pipeline nationally with a market capitalisation today of $2.08 billion.
“There’s a lot of capital chasing land lease communities or Build to Rent, but virtually no capital being invested in affordable over-50s rental accommodation and there’s significant unmet demand,” he told the Australian Financial Review. “That is quite a compelling opportunity.”
He said there were three key attractions to taking the CEO role at Eureka.
1. the opportunity to work with a great Board and team many of whom I already know;
2. the solid existing business platform and the tremendous opportunity for growth; and
3. its focus on providing a great sense of community and support for a critical component of Australia’s ageing population – many of whom don’t have a lot of housing options.
Eureka’s Executive Chairman is Murray Boyte, who was Chief Executive Officer of ASX listed Ariadne Australia Limited from 2002 to 2015, and has over 35 years’ experience in merchant banking and finance, undertaking company reconstructions, mergers and acquisitions in Australia, New Zealand, North America and Hong Kong.
Director Greg Paramor AO is Chairman of investment manager Leftfield Investments and has more than 45 years’ experience in the real estate and the funds management industry. He is a former President of the Property Council and Investment Funds Association, and is a Non-Executive Director of Charter Hall Group. He is Chair of BackTrack, an organisation assisting vulnerable young people.
Eureka has a market capilisation of $182.32 million and Simon is excited at the opportunities to grow what he called a “nascent” sector.
He sees an opportunity to use Eureka’s landholdings to create rental housing for people under 50, in the way some developments overseas offered rental accommodation for a mix of ages and household types.
“That’s very common in European countries, particularly in the Netherlands where they’ve got rental communities but they’re all ages,” Simon said.
“You have people in their 70s and 80s living with university students, living with young families with kids. There’s a real crossover of cultures and demographics that we don’t see a lot of in Australia.”
Simon will start as Eureka CEO on 12 September.
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