Australia’s largest owner and operator of senior living communities has launched plans for a A$400m ($281m) project in Shanghai, the latest foray into the country by foreign investors rushing to profit from China’s rapidly ageing population.

Lendlease, the Sydney-based property and infrastructure group, said the seniors’ resort in Shanghai’s Qingpu district would be the first of at least four similar facilities it planned to open in China before 2025.

“We want to do a project of this scale every year over the next three to four years to build a platform of about 5,000 units,” Tony Lombardo, chief executive of Lendlease Asia, told the Financial Times in an interview, adding: “With this first project we want to test the market, make sure we get the product right.”