Following last week’s rumours that Stockland is looking to sell its retirement village business, Group CEO Mark Steinert has come out and confirmed that they are looking for one or more ‘partners’ to join in the ownership of their retirement village business.

They are seeking parties to put in capital up to 50% of the business which is valued at around $1 billion.

The attraction is their aim is to get returns up to 7% within the next three years. Today’s return is 5.3%. Steinert says Stockland is committed to retirement villages for the long term.

The assumed objective of the $500M payment for 50% is to release cash. It would go a long way to recovering the original investment that Stockland made in acquiring its village portfolio. They paid $329M to buy the 17 ARC retirement villages in Victoria in 2007 from John, Russell and Graham Knowles and Ian Ball, followed by the $320M purchase of the 30 retirement village Aveum portfolio in 2010.