Investors have a new aged care operator to choose from with Radius Care listing on NZX
Monday, 7 December 2020
Investors will have another large aged care provider to invest in when Radius Care lists on the New Zealand sharemarket on Thursday.
It is not offering shares to the public at this point but will be in the future to raise capital for expansion of its retirement village operations.
Radius’ shareholders will be able to trade their shares with other investors through the NZX from Thursday.
Radius is predominantly an aged care provider with 22 facilities, three of which it owns and 19 which it leases, and it owns and operates two retirement villages. Its business is different from its competitors on the NZX who make a good deal of their profits from building and reselling retirement village units.
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Radius founder and executive chairman, Brien Cree, said the company wanted to list to further its growth and expand its retirement villages operations, hence the NZX listing to provide the avenue to raise capital for that in the future.
”Whilst we’re not capital raising in this round, we are doing a compliance list which gets us on the board (NZX main board), as soon as we have concrete proposals we will be back to the market.”
Its business model was different to the other retirement village operators on the NZX and it focused on acute care of elderly people.
”But, part of this process of listing is that we do want to get more involved in that retirement village sector, and so we will end up over time expanding our retirement village holding.”
However, its business would remain very much focused on care, he said.
On Thursday Radius would release a lot of financial information about the business and its plans and targets for the next five years. That would be available on the NZX website and Radius website.
Radius’ board had set the share listing price, in consultation with Jarden, its lead broker. But the buyers and sellers in the market from Thursday onwards would determine the price, Cree said.
Knox Investment Partners, a fund, owns 45.25 per cent of Radius and would be distributing a substantial amount of the fund’s Radius shares to individuals who had invested in the fund. It was those individuals and a group of staff members who would be able to sell their shares on the NZX from Thursday.
Cree estimated there would be about 240 Radius shareholders at listing. At this stage he was not expecting to sell any of his 54.75 per cent shareholding in Radius.
“We’ve built a very solid track record of providing excellent aged care across New Zealand with a particular focus on high acuity and specialist care.
“In addition, we have also developed two boutique retirement villages. The development and villages space is one of the areas where we want to grow, however, we will remain a care-focused business. We have clear plans and targets in place for the next five years and beyond.”
Radius Care was established by Cree in 2003. Its aged care facilities and two retirement villages across New Zealand care for more than 1700 residents. It employs more than 1500 staff.
It offers rest home and hospital care, respite, dementia, palliative and young disabled care.
In November another large retirement village operator Metlifecare delisted from the NZX after being bought 100 per cent by a Swedish investor, EQT Infrastructure.