Lendlease sells retirement village stake

The 25 per cent stake sale values Lendlease’s retirement living business at $1.7 billion.

Construction and development giant Lendlease has sold a 25 per cent stake in its retirement living business to Dutch investment manager APG Asset Management NV for a price understood to be slightly north of $425 million.

The deal is understood to have valued the retirement living business at a little over its $1.7 billion in carrying value.

Lendlease will retain the remaining three quarters of the business, which includes its retirement village portfolio, the operating platform managing the portfolio and its development pipeline.

The group will need to write down the value of some deferred tax assets associated with the retirement living business, with the overall impact of the transaction set to be a net loss after tax of approximately $35m.

Meanwhile, Lendlease has established a joint venture with Softbank Group to develop and own telecommunications infrastructure assets in the US, with each partner committing $US200m equity.

The group also warned its full-year 2018 result would be hit by underperformance in its Australian construction business related to some engineering projects, which it set would be offset by other divisions outperforming.

“The partial sale of our retirement living business further strengthens our financial position and the joint venture with Softbank in the US telco infrastructure space adds to the diversification of our business,” chief executive Steve McCann said.