Global investors are increasingly looking for opportunities outside traditional asset classes that remain defensive through cycles, amid rising inflation and interest rates. One sector that could fill that need sits between infrastructure and real estate, according to alternative real estate asset manager MA Financial.
The Australia-based GP is betting that pubs, marinas, and specialist disability accommodation – three key sectors it sees as benefiting from structural tailwinds as well as its operational expertise – while also assessing opportunities across other living-sector formats as part of its focus on generating risk-adjusted returns.
“From a risk-adjusted returns perspective, we think alternative real estate with operating exposure combined with real estate exposure screens very attractive relative to private equity and more passive core [real estate],” said Brad Couper, Head of Alternative Real Estate and Managing Director at MA Financial.
“We are ultimately thematic investors. We like sectors with strong fundamental tailwinds, but [also] where we can add value across both the operating business and the real estate,” Couper said. “We focus on good cash-on-cash returns and sectors where the total return outcome is skewed to income.”
Listed on the Australian Securities Exchange, MA Financial Group specialises in private credit, real estate, and hospitality and has offices in China, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Singapore, and the US.
It recently reported that as of June 2026, its assets under management had grown to $15.5 billion. In notes accompanying its financial report for the half year ended 30 June 2026, the firm notes that AUM growth benefited from strong growth in its core real estate, hospitality, and private credit businesses.
Since 2017, when the firm established the first of its alternative real estate businesses in hospitality, the unit’s assets under management have grown to account for about 20% of the firm’s overall AUM.
Held under the evergreen MA Redcape Hotel Fund, with an over $1.5 billion diversified portfolio of properties in the states of Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria in Australia, the hospitality strategy targets a total return of 15% over a two-year period.
There is some $20 million-$50 million annually that is earmarked for asset regeneration, Couper added. “We take a very hands-on approach. We have very active asset plans, and we like emerging sectors.”
The core thesis to investors is that operating exposure provides more levers, particularly in a difficult macro environment.
“The hospitality platform delivered in excess of 15% earnings growth for the last financial year against a pretty difficult macro backdrop, with rising interest rates, geopolitical issues, inflation and cost of living pressures. A large part of that uplift is the fruits of that asset regeneration,” Couper said.
“With passive real estate, when interest rates go up by 200 basis points, you have no ability to recover that. With operating real estate, you can be more nimble, which helps you preserve your earnings and your margins.”
Emerging sectors
In 2023, the firm saw an opportunity to enter the international superyacht business and acquired the d’Albora marina portfolio in Australia for $225 million, to seed the close-ended MA Marina Fund.
Earlier this year, the portfolio expanded with the acquisition of Gold Coast City Marina & Shipyard. As Couper explained, marinas are an emerging sector that is growing amid a supply constraint. And investors in Asia have already had some exposure to the business in North America and Europe.
“We like the defensive nature of the cash flows as a boat storage business. Once you own a boat, you have to store it somewhere,” Couper said. “Boat registrations kept increasing; the boats kept coming, and they kept getting bigger. On the supply side, it’s very hard to get approvals for new marinas, or expansion of existing marinas.”
That portfolio has since grown to 17 marinas with more than half a billion dollars in AUM, with an 18% (unrealised) IRR.
The alternative real estate sector is evolving, with certain sectors being more institutional or more aligned with core opportunities, while others offer more “opportunistic-style returns”, Couper explained.
For instance, the land lease communities in Australia, which cater to older adults, have matured over the last one to two decades amid growing interest from North American capital. That sector, a A$12 billion market according to Property Council Australia, now trades at roughly 5% capitalisation rates versus 7% to 8% before, Couper noted, indicating relatively stable, low-risk assets.
In October last year, MA Financial launched its third strategy, which it sees as an underinvested segment of the alternative real estate market. This will include specialist disability accommodation – the latter being a core component of Australia’s social infrastructure, and part of the government’s National Disability Insurance Scheme.
The appeal, particularly in terms of generating resilient cash flow that is uncorrelated to broader economic cycles and geopolitical risks, is clear, according to Daniel Hargraves, Managing Director, Alternative Real Estate at MA Financial.
It is essential social infrastructure with recurring use, and with government-backed income streams indexed to inflation. At the same time, the sector continues to see structural undersupply amid growing demand on the back of population dynamics.
There is significant institutional capital in land lease communities, and a growing presence within specialist disability accommodation as well, Couper said.
“As the scale builds, that pulls the capital in. You start to build a corporate platform around the actual asset class itself, and that brings in that institutional governance piece, which these investors look for,” said Hargraves. “Combining that with genuine operating capability at the management level, that evolution of the capital base helps alternative real estate sectors evolve or mature as asset classes.”
Ultimately, the opportunity for global capital is the spread between starting yields and how the sector trades once fully institutionalised.
Added Hargraves: “A big part of our job is building that track record to show that we can do it, and then that pulls you in looking for a better return than just a core-plus arrangement where it’s a more passive asset.”
