Seattle-based Columbia Pacific Management acquired Serene Senior Care, a senior housing specialist in India, for an undisclosed amount. Serene operates 735 residential units in four senior housing properties in South India, with communities in the Tamul Nadu cities of Chennai and Coimbatore, and the union territory of Puducherry.

Columbia Pacific has aggressive growth plans for India. According to the company, it will increase the number of units Serene Senior Care has under management to about 5,000 in the next five years. Columbia Pacific, which also owns Columbia Asia Hospital Group, one of the largest healthcare providers in Asia, is planning to develop two senior housing communities in Bangalore.

“Columbia Pacific Management has been operating hospitals in India for more than a decade, and we are one of the most experienced operators of senior housing both in the U.S. and China,” Columbia Pacific development director Matthew Powell said.

In 2011, Columbia Pacific Management received government approval to open the first foreign-owned, for-profit senior care facility in China. The company now owns and operates three senior care facilities there — two in Shanghai and one in Beijing — with a pipeline of additional communities under development.

The company aims to take advantage of the anticipated graying of India. The country has an elderly population of 100 million, more than the entire population of the UK and Canada put together.