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There’s a growing opportunity for agency involvement in the development of the healthcare and life sciences sector Down Under, according to the global property group.
Knight Frank revealed its foray into the sector, achieved via the creation of a new healthcare and life sciences division.
Sam Biggins will spearhead the new team, as partner and national head of life sciences, with the division to sit under the Justin Bond-led capital markets business.
Knight Frank Australia counts Mr Biggins’ nearly two decades’ worth of experience executing commercial real estate mandates for a range of institutional, high-net-worth, private equity and global corporate clients across the Asia-Pacific region.
He rejoins Knight Frank, having spent almost 12 years with Colliers — five of which were running the firm’s ANZ desk from Asia.
For Mr Biggins, the development of the sector as an investment class in Australia “offers many great opportunities”.
“We are seeing significant demand from investors wanting to increase their exposure to this asset class,” he shared.
“I am very excited to be joining Knight Frank to work with Justin and the firm’s market-leading APAC capital markets team and global LSRE platform.”
From his perspective, there are a number of attractive growth factors for this sector, “including Australia’s ageing demographic and strong public and private-sector support for the progression of our healthcare and biomed industries”.
“A critical component of its development includes private-public partnerships that foster greater collaboration between the public and private sectors. Private sector investment in healthcare and life sciences assets enable governments to allocate more funding to enhancing the operational capabilities and outputs of these facilities and functions, and deliver better outcomes for the community,” Mr Biggins said.
Mr Bond, in his capacity as Knight Frank’s national head of capital markets, believes sectors beyond the traditional mainstays of office, retail and industrial “are a growing part of the investment landscape”.
“Emerging sectors such as healthcare and life sciences offer an expanding tenant base and the prospect of strong and stable income returns over the long term, which we know our clients are looking for as they seek to diversify their portfolios,” he said.
He expects that in years to come, healthcare and life sciences will represent a larger part of the market nationally — espousing that “this presents significant growth opportunity for our firm”.
With healthcare and life sciences lagging domestically in comparison to other developed markets around the world, Mr Bond said: “It’s important that we work closely with our colleagues in the UK to strategically establish our presence in Australia’s emerging capital markets through healthcare and life sciences.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Grace Ormsby
Grace is a journalist across Momentum property and investment brands. Grace joined Momentum Media in 2018, bringing with her a Bachelor of Laws and a Bachelor of Communication (Journalism) from the University of Newcastle. She’s passionate about delivering easy to digest information and content relevant to her key audiences and stakeholders.
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