Carolyn Viney joins Super Housing Partnerships as CEO
One of Australia’s most senior women in property, Carolyn Viney, joins the new Super Housing Partnerships real estate investment platform as CEO.
Super Housing Partnerships (SHP) have announced today that former Vicinity Executive and Grocon CEO, Carolyn Viney will take up the position of CEO at SHP.
Ms Viney said she was excited to lead the team at SHP that’s providing institutional investors with access to equity investment in a pipeline of build-to-rent housing projects, with a focus on social and affordable housing unique to the Australian market.
Ms Viney said:
“The SHP platform seeks to bring together investor capital with quality, affordable housing and the groups best placed to deliver it with workers in locations where it is most needed, most valuable and most productive for the overall economy. Housing affordability is a critical issue in Australia and in SHP we see an opportunity to deliver returns for investment partners in impact-led housing solutions which benefit their members and the community as a whole”.
SHP launched in November 2022 supported by founding investment partner HESTA who are looking to commit $240 million towards a pipeline of Victorian build-to-rent projects.
HESTA and SHP are pioneering an affordable housing investment model that can help generate stable, long-term returns for members by innovative investment to address Australia’s housing crisis,” Ms Blakey said.
“Lack of housing and its impacts on economic productivity is a systemic risk for long-term investors like HESTA. Our members provide critical health and community services and often are lower paid so they can find it extremely challenging to access affordable, stable housing near their work.
“By aggregating capital from institutional investors into its housing strategies, SHP will make a significant difference to the supply of quality, sustainable, affordable housing in Australia. A meaningful contribution to the solution of housing affordability requires an at scale, replicable and reliable model and the establishment of the SHP platform seeks to address all of these challenges” Ms Viney said.
SHP already has three funds open and an investible pipeline of property assets. Its focus is on Australian build-to-rent housing with a mix of affordable, social, market rate and specialist disability accommodation. SHP’s approach aims to provide improved social outcomes while cross-subsidisation strengthens investment outcomes.
“Housing affordability has reached a critical tipping point in Australia. SHP looks forward to working with industry participants including policymakers in federal and state governments to ensure private capital is appropriately incentivised to invest in the right outcomes which benefit the economy and benefit the community. The talented team at SHP are building partnerships nationally and already attracting international attention.” Ms Viney said.
“Our model is to partner with residential developers who have assets and projects in the right locations offering the right amenity for residents and the team is already in active discussions with organisations who have a proven track record of delivering quality projects and have a pipeline that we can invest into immediately and which have the skills to originate further project investment opportunities for us. In short, our strategy is to have multiple developer partners in each major city which can deliver quality homes for ordinary hardworking Australians.”
Ms Viney takes up the leadership role at SHP after a successful career spanning more than 25 years, as a property lawyer at Minter Ellison, at Grocon, including as Deputy CEO and CEO until 2016 and most recently Vicinity Centres.
As Chief Development Officer at Vicinity Centres Ms Viney was responsible for the development of Vicinity’s mixed-use strategy, complementing Vicinity’s existing retail landholdings with commercial office, hotels, residential apartments and health uses, making it the most advanced among Australia’s retail REITs to realise the diversification of its portfolio.
Ms Viney also serves on the Boards of The Big Issue, its associated entity Homes for Homes and as an Advisory Board Member for Women’s Property Initiatives. SHP’s focus on access to affordable housing in Australia brings together areas of interest for Ms Viney.
About SHP
Super Housing Partnerships (SHP) is a specialist affordable housing fund manager focused on increasing the housing supply through partnerships with institutional investors.
SHP exists to provide innovative solutions to significantly increase the supply of Affordable, Sustainable and Suitable housing choices to all Australians through a unique aggregating platform.
About HESTA
HESTA is the largest superannuation fund dedicated to Australia’s health and community services sector. An industry fund that’s run only to benefit members, HESTA now has more than 970,000 members (over 80% are women) and manages over $70 billion in assets invested around the world.