Service Technician

Baker McKenzie advises Straco on spanish student housing asset sale to Greystar. * Baker McKenzie has advised Straco Real Estate on the sale of two student housing assets located in Salamanca and Valencia to Greystar, an international investor and operator in residential real estate. * The transaction forms part of Straco Real Estate's strategy to develop student accommodation assets in key university markets across Spain. * The assets are located in two of Spain's main university cities and form part of a segment that has seen activity from international investors, particularly in alternative real estate and living sectors. Original article: - Advertisement -

Active adult pioneers share wins, misfires, clearer picture of market. April 2, 2026 NASHVILLE, TN - After operating in the active adult market for more than a decade, early pioneers in the field offered a variety of lessons learned Wednesday on the final day of the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care's 2026 Spring Conference. Defining active adult. NIC defined active adult communities in a 2022 white paper, updating the definition in 2024: Rental communities that are age-eligible, market-rate, multifamily properties focused on enhanced lifestyle programming without providing meals. Matt Pyzyk, Green Courte Partners managing director of acquisitions, moderated the panel discussion and said the average move-in age for active adult residents ranges from the late 60s to early 70s. The majority of residents are single and women; they may be employed full-time or part-time; and 60% to 70% move in after downsizing from an owned home. NIC MAP tracks almost 800 active adult rental properties. In a fall 2025 blog post, NIC Senior Principal Caroline Clapp noted that stabilized average occupancy rates were greater than 95% for the active adult sector for the year. Pyzyk said that 36% of the current active adult inventory has opened since 2019, and those who have operated in the space over the past 10 years have "learned a lot." Staffing drives success. When Greystar, the largest active adult operator, first entered the active adult market, Senior Managing Director Michael Levine said, the firm had a vision of the product. The company, he said, tried rolling out active adult as a Ritz-Carlton-type product but quickly pulled back, realizing that the price point could not support that staffing model. Levine said Greystar hires a community manager and two sales staff members for each community, outsourcing and centralizing the maintenance and housekeeping functions. He added that the active adult business model is built around human capital and succeeds or fails based on the teams driving the business. "Your premium is in the team, not the community," he said. The Carlyle Group first entered the senior housing space in the early 2000s. Ten years later, the company had a major pivot, becoming the first large capital provider to focus on active adult, Managing Director Ashley Fitzgerald said. The common thread for success is having leadership with a strong sales background, she said. "A unique aspect of staffing for the active adult platform is that every staff member has to be able to sell," Fitzgerald said. Blaze Capital Partners said it identified an "undeniable" correlation between resident and staff retention over the past decade. Co-founder and Managing Partner Eddy O'Brien said that staff retention lies at the heart of creating a sense of community and fostering interpersonal relationships. Attaining that high staff retention rate means creating team buy-in. Upon opening a new community, O'Brien said, Blaze lays out the vision for the next five to seven years for its teams, establishes solutions to improve the lives of residents, and brings capital to improve activities and services. Taking the time to get the right team on-site early always pays dividends, O'Brien said. BVO Capital Managing Partner Jim Lindsey added that part of creating a strong active adult community lies in designating a staff member to focus on "breathing life into programming." Differentiating from independent living and multifamily. O'Brien said that Blaze jumped into the active adult segment intending to disrupt independent living. The company initially followed a franchise-esque model, pushing down and "force feeding" the same programming from the top down at every community. What the company discovered, however, was that programming implementation worked better when it was organic. Today, Blaze views the job of its owners/operators/managers as assisting in implementing and creating venues for activities. Once a community stabilizes and starts performing well, O'Brien said, residents take over and are proud to steer activities. He added that active adult doesn't necessarily compete with independent living or multifamily if it's done right - active adult is its own sector. Levine said Greystar differentiates itself from conventional independent living by outsourcing some activities and offering regionalized, healthy food options from local chefs. A middle-market active adult product has been the most recent innovation of "active adult 2.0," Lindsey said. The 165-unit community defined as BVO's "sweet spot," Lindsey said, allows the company to still create a boutique community feel that distinguishes itself from more expansive multifamily apartments while still providing amenity space that is more conveniently located than such space at typical multifamily apartments. Fitzgerald said that The Carlyle Group is focusing on a middle-market product as well, with amenity spaces that are larger than multifamily spaces, to maintain a lifestyle programming focus. Although initial active adult communities overdeveloped amenity spaces, she said, the evolution of the model focuses on how to make spaces more flexible to cater to multiple activities. Offering a cottage home product also is being used as a differentiator in some markets. O'Brien said that cottages selectively introduced in a handful of Blaze's markets are performing "incredibly well," leasing up faster, attracting a slightly younger resident and having waitlists. He said he sees cottages as being a big piece of the active adult industry moving forward. Cottages, O'Brien said, can help eliminate the stigma of renting versus owning for some prospective residents, helping them to overcome the psychological aspect of moving into an "institutional apartment" such as in a multifamily setting. Introducing à la carte options, such as meals, is another way to maintain the active adult lifestyle and choice-based product. Some residents may pay for home health or home care services, but X doesn't offer them, which keeps the average age of residents lower. Challenges vs. opportunities. Levine said education is still necessary so that active adult communities find the appropriate older adults and the appropriate older adults find active adult communities. Greystar, he added, also has found success educating financial planners on the benefits of active adult community living versus living at home in the greater community - socialization and mental wellness, for instance. Lindsey said that BVO Capital took a page from the senior housing playbook by conducting outreach and inviting groups into its buildings to host meetings and understand how the spaces work. He said when prospective residents run the numbers, they see that active adult is a more cost effective way of living than maintaining a home. Panelists recommended following the senior housing playbook rather than the multifamily playbook, noting, however, that active adult communities are subject to the Fair Housing Act as are multifamily apartments. When the active adult product first launched, panelists said, various investors entered the space, thinking it was just another version of independent living or multifamily housing. O'Brien said there are short-term acquisition opportunities for experienced operators in the space to come in and capitalize on the mistakes other companies made jumping into the space with faulty assumptions.

Klarna sees 4 senior staff departures since January. By PYMNTS | March 19, 2026 Klarna has lost four senior staff members since January, Bloomberg reported Thursday (March 19), citing updates in LinkedIn profiles. Andrea Ferraz Estrada, head of investor relations and M&A, who worked at Klarna for six years and seven months, left the company in March to become vice president of investor relations and corporate communications at Delivery Hero, according to her profile on the social media site. Andrew Pietro, global head of litigation, who was with Klarna for three years, left Klarna in March to become associate general counsel and head of litigation at Greystar. Yuri Gusev, engineering director, who was with Klarna for eight years, left the company in February to become chief technology officer at Encube Technologies. Please add us to your preferred sources list so our news, data and interviews show up in your feed. Thanks! Joao Tonon, head of AI and automation, operations, who was with Klarna for three years and 11 months, left in January to join Zalando as head of product. Reached by PYMNTS, Klarna declined to comment on the report. The Bloomberg report said shares in Klarna have fallen about 66% since its September 2025 initial public offering. The report added that among companies that joined the stock market on U.S. exchanges between September and November, there has been a weighted-average decline of 15% from their IPO price. According to a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics survey dated January 2024, the median years of tenure with a current employer in the finance industry was 4.9 years and that in the professional and technical services industry was 3.7 years. Klarna reported Feb. 19 that during the fourth quarter, its revenue increased 38% year over year to reach $1.082 billion (marking the company's first $1 billion quarter), its gross merchandise volume (GMV) increase 32% year over year to reach $38.7 billion, its number of active customers rise 28% to 118 million and its number of merchants increase 42% to 966,000. The Wall Street Journal reported that day that Klarna's shares fell 15% in pre-market trading as the firm reported a net loss of $26 million for the quarter. The Financial Times highlighted Klarna's $273 million net loss for the year and said the firm's shares dropped a quarter that day have fallen 66% since its September IPO.