Australia Future Fund on track to become the Australia’s biggest landlord

Australian Business reports, “In 2020, the Future Fund will be Australia’s biggest property landlord as the $67 billion listed property trust sector cedes its dominance to big sovereign wealth funds and super fund investors. Among other big trends, the property industry will be grappling with population growth, an ageing population, climate change and the challenge to supply infrastructure. In Australia, the annual population growth rate doubled in the past 10 years to 443,000 in the year to June. At the same time, the country attracted 290,000 migrants in net terms.

“I don’t think that will significantly ease up,” demographer Bernard Salt says.

This month, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced state governments and local councils will have to agree to better standards of planning in capital cities to qualify for future federal infrastructure funding to ensure they can properly handle growth, with the population set to reach 35 million by 2049. In the corporate world, analysts expect big superannuation funds and the increasingly dominant sovereign wealth funds to become landlords of much more property. The race is already on for Australian property companies to snag these big-ticket investors as partners. Lend Lease chief executive Steve McCann and his team are in the box seat as retail property fund manager for Australia’s $64 billion Future Fund with a joint bid to take over ING’s unlisted $1.4bn retail fund.”

read more: Australian Business

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