With funding from its stakeholders, the Industry Superannuation Property Trust (ISPT) has begun investigating investment opportunities in the retirement village market.

“We’re investigating the prospect of investing in the sector,” Daryl Browning, CEO of ISPT, said, explaining that retirement villages were attractive assets because they generated returns similar to residential property, and would provide services that fund memberships would use in the future.

Australia’s aging demographic also meant that these assets would be in coming decades, and these observations combined prompted the manager to propose the research project to its stakeholders, Browning said.

“If we do our homework and the investment case stacks up, we’ll raise a fund.

”Some of ISPT’s industry fund owners, such as the $8 billion HOSTPLUS, have committed capital alongside the manager to fund the project, Sam Sicilia, CIO of the fund, said.

It was the first time ISPT had carried out due diligence on retirement villages, Browning said, and the manager was expected to present findings to its stakeholders in the coming months.