Real estate investment trust Impact Healthcare REIT, which invests in healthcare real estate assets, particularly care homes, has appointed Chris Santer as a non-executive director. Santer will also sit on the audit, remuneration, nomination and management engagement committees.

Santer has 25 years’ real estate investment and development experience in the UK and continental Europe in listed and private equity funds. He has been responsible for a number of funds making or managing direct and indirect real estate investments totalling more than £5 billion, ranging from core, value-add and opportunistic, and across sectors including office, retail, warehouse, residential and alternative asset classes, especially healthcare.

Santer is chief investment officer for Primary Health Properties, a FTSE 250 company that invests in modern primary healthcare facilities in the UK and Ireland. Before that, Santer was a director of portfolio management at PGIM Real Estate and previously MGPA. His healthcare experience has also included joint ventures with Sunrise Senior Living to develop and operate premium, private pay UK care homes.

Rupert Barclay, chairman of Impact Healthcare REIT, said: “Chris brings 25 years of UK and continental European real estate investment and development experience, with a particular focus on the healthcare and care homes sectors, which is expected to meaningfully contribute to the company’s growth ambitions and asset management strategy.”