For investors, sometimes the new kid on the block really is a new kid, or even their grandparents. This certainly seems to be the case with Australian social infrastructure, which is just beginning to make its mark on the institutional investment scene with a flurry of newly-minted investment vehicles posting eye-popping numbers.

Social infrastructure, defined by Property Investment Research as “specialised assets that provide a service to the community, such as childcare, healthcare, police stations and courthouses, and retirement and aged care”, is not new in itself, but access to it within Australia is new for most institutional investors, as deals were often too specialised or too small to show up on pension plans’ radar.

“It is only in the last five years or so that the market has really developed to the point that it has become institutionalised, and it’s still relatively small in the scheme of things,” explains Bryce Mitchelson, managing director wit