India represents a huge untapped market when it comes to seniors housing, and a Seattle-based company already with significant investments in Asia is looking to capitalize. A subsidiary of Columbia Pacific Advisors (which was founded in 2006 by Alex Washburn, Stan Baty and Dan Baty), Columbia Pacific Management manages an international business that includes hospitals, clinics and senior care facilities in Kenya, Southeast Asia, India and China.
Now, the company is making a huge investment in the Indian senior care market, which has an aging population, rising upper- and middle classes and an under-supply of senior care facilities. Columbia Pacific purchased Serene Senior Care and its 735 residential units in four seniors housing properties located across South India. Under the Serene brand, residents can buy their own retirement villas, apartments or houses, and receive various levels of care. Meals are also served in a central, air-conditioned dining room. Serene is a growing company too, with an approximately 1,000 additional units opening by fall 2017. Columbia plans to massively expand the Serene brand, hoping to have around 5,000 units under management in the next five years. The first two new communities are planned to open in Bangalore.
It should help that Columbia’s hospital brand in India, Malaysia and Indonesia, Columbia Asia, which operates 11 modern multispecialty hospitals around India, is the only healthcare provider in Asia to operate hospitals in so many countries under a single brand. So, the company clearly knows, and succeeds in, these markets.
