Home Property Australia Keyton brand launch signals growth plans

Keyton brand launch signals growth plans

  • June 28, 2023
  • by Property Australia
Cedar Pacific CEO Bernard Armstrong.

Keyton, previously known as Lendlease Retirement Living, has undergone a rebranding and relaunch as it looks to expand its footprint.

With the support of its owners Aware Super, APG Asset Management, and Lendlease, Keyton is actively expanding its presence in the market, emphasising greenfield developments and aims to enter the rapidly growing land lease sector.

Keyton operates numerous over-55s living communities, boasting a portfolio of more than 75 villages and a total of 13,500 units across the country.

In 2017, Lendlease divested 25 per cent of Lendlease Retirement to APG, a Dutch pension fund, for a total of $450 million. After four years, Aware Super acquired an additional 25 per cent stake for approximately $420 million. In 2022, Aware Super further increased its ownership by purchasing an additional 24.9 per cent stake for $490 million. As a result, Lendlease currently holds a remaining stake of 25.1 per cent.

Chief Executive Officer of Keyton, Nathan Cockerill, said the rebrand has given the company the license to own its identity and be 100 per cent dedicated to the retirement living sector.

“We want to expand our business and expand our product offering, it was the right time to have a separate brand from the from LendLease,” he said.

“We’re at 13,500 units today, we’ve got aspirations to, on the medium to long term, to become 20,000 units, because we think that’s the optimal point where we are the most efficient as an organisation.

“We’re employing, as part of this process, 50 new people into the business so we’re actually making sure that, as a as a standalone business, we’ve got the infrastructure internally to support what we want to do long term.”

Mr Cockerill said the group is looking at three avenues of growth, being development, acquisitions and land lease.

“We’re actively looking at sites across particularly the eastern seaboard of Australia that meet our requirements, particularly around the aging population,” he said.

Mr Cockerill said over the last six to eight months, the availability of land has started to open.

He said the ageing population of Australia is leading to an increase demand for retirement living products, but also for ones focussed on wellness.

He said the group piloted a wellbeing program across seven of its villages that worked with allied health programs to create programs to promote social, physical and mental activities.

“It has been hugely successful and we are now expanding that across our portfolio,” he said.

“Together with our expertise in village operations and management as well as development and placemaking, we provide all village and resort residents with superior lifestyle opportunities underpinned by a strong sense of community spirit. This is emphasised in our internal story of ‘lead with heart’, which really outlines what we are all about.”