news

한어Русский языкEnglishFrançaisIndonesianSanskrit日本語DeutschPortuguêsΕλληνικάespañolItalianoSuomalainenLatina

China News Service, August 15 (Xue Yufei, intern Li Sitong) The National Development and Reform Commission recently released the REITs project application requirements, which include elderly care facilities. At the 2024 Boao Real Estate Forum, Chen Yujun, president of Fosun Healthcare Industry Development Group (hereinafter referred to as Fosun Healthcare), told China News Service: "This opens up the 'Ren and Du meridians' of issuing elderly care facility REITs, allowing elderly care companies with heavy assets to realize capital recovery."

Chen Yujun, President of Fosun Healthcare. Photo by Xue Yufei of China Business Network

It is understood that Fosun Healthcare is the core healthcare platform of Fosun, and currently has formed product forms such as high-end elderly care communities/institutions, medical and nursing rehabilitation/nursing homes, and community home care integrated services. Chen Yujun said that Fosun Healthcare has gone through three stages of development in the past decade. The first stage was to build a healthcare service model. The second stage was to think about the implementation of more products, including newly built nursing, maintenance, rehabilitation, and community and home services. The third stage is to introduce strategic investment and better partners.

Currently, Fosun Healthcare focuses on building a good layout in large cities and internal closed loops in different scenarios and businesses in small cities, forming a clear and easy-to-understand business model, and identifying upstream and downstream partners.

Chen Yujun further introduced the scale of service supply in the three elderly care models of home, community and institution. Fosun Healthcare has deployed multiple business formats in the urban ecology, including nursing homes, nursing homes, community service points, and home door-to-door services. In terms of scale, the company has more than a dozen projects in North China and East China, and the expansion situation is relatively optimistic.

Chen Yujun is optimistic about the current consumer market. He believes that the Chinese domestic market is large enough and the consumption capacity of the elderly population has not yet been fully tapped.

Chen Yujun pointed out that in the face of the income gap of the elderly population caused by the urban-rural dual structure, it is necessary to broaden the income channels of pensions to enhance the economic strength of the elderly and promote the development of the silver economy. At present, policies have been implemented in many aspects. Although it is difficult to achieve rapid improvement in the short term, companies should strengthen their own strength, be prepared, and maintain a positive attitude.

The National Development and Reform Commission included elderly care facilities in the REITs issuance in the "Real Estate Investment Trust Fund (REITs) Project Application Requirements for Infrastructure" issued at the end of July this year. The document requires that the elderly care facilities to be applied for are elderly care projects that have been registered in accordance with the law and filed with the civil affairs department.

Chen Yujun said: "This opens up the 'Ren Du Meridian' for the issuance of REITs for pension projects, allowing pension companies with heavy assets to realize capital recovery, and companies have more funds to invest in new projects and tracks, forming a healthy capital circulation. At the same time, it also provides ordinary investors with new investment channels."

At present, there are no REITs products with elderly care facilities as underlying assets in the market. Chen Yujun said that first of all, from the perspective of asset structure, the proportion of elderly care enterprises with heavy assets in the industry is not high, and most of them are mainly light assets. Secondly, elderly care enterprises have helped solve many related problems of real estate companies in their past development, and the clarity of asset ownership needs to be adjusted. Finally, the operating conditions of the elderly care industry are uneven, and there is a certain vacancy rate. Each company is still exploring an industrial model that suits itself.

However, he said: "The listing of REITs for elderly care facilities may take only one or two years. I believe that there should be some projects coming out this year at the earliest, or next year at the latest." As to whether Fosun Healthcare will participate in the issuance of REITs in the future, Chen Yujun said that the company will first improve its internal strength and urban layout, and will participate if there is an opportunity.

(For more reporting clues, please contact the author Xue Yufei: [email protected]) (China News Service APP)

　　(The views in this article are for reference only and do not constitute investment advice. Investment is risky and you should be cautious when entering the market.)

　　All rights reserved by China Business Network. No organization or individual may reprint, excerpt or use in other ways without written authorization.

Editor-in-charge: Wei Wei and Li Zhongyuan