New real estate fund set to target senior housing
MELBOURNE: A new real estate fund is set to target seniors housing around the world.
Private investment firm Bain Capital has raised $1.5 billion for a new Harvard University-backed real estate fund that could include senior housing among its targeted property types.
Harvard is one of the fund’s biggest backers. The fund will focus on real estate classes such as senior housing, self-storage, life science and labs, Bain executives told Bloomberg. Boston-based Bain was co-founded by Mitt Romney and currently has about $105 billion in total assets under management.
While this isn’t the company’s first exposure to real estate, the new fund represents a much more robust push into the asset class. Harvard first tapped Bain to manage its real estate investments in late 2017. The Harvard portfolio formed the nucleus of Bain’s then-new real estate arm.
Harvard’s endowment had been focused on senior housing investments prior to 2017, and that interest aligned with Bain’s.
“The endowment has invested in areas that [Bain] managers believe will be influenced by broader economic trends, such as housing for the elderly as the population ages, or affordably priced homes in areas where real estate costs are rising.”
Already, Bain has invested about $550 million from the fund.
The fund has other investors, too, including the Los Angeles County Employees Retirement Association and Bain Capital professionals who committed capital that accounted for more than 10% of the total $1.5 billion amount.
Private equity in recent years has become a sizable force in the senior living industry. Private buyers have closed on at least $1 billion in transactions in every quarter except one for the past 23 quarters, according to a recent update from the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care (NIC).
