NEW Zealand agribusiness mogul and "spud king" Alan Pye is selling out of his Coonawarra potato and onion investments, putting more than 900 hectares of horticultural and cropping land and business assets up for sale.
Mr Pye is a joint owner of Coonawarra Fresh Produce (CFP) alongside South Australian farmer David Gartner. The business and its assets has been listed for sale with expectations above $13 million through Colliers International.
CFP is one of the biggest horticultural producers in the Limestone Coast region of South Australia, producing 15,000 tonnes of onions and 8400 tonnes of potatoes last year for the major supermarket groups. It incorporates 923 hectares of mostly contiguous property in the district of Glenroy near Penola - halfway between Adelaide and Melbourne - with 980 mega litres of water entitlements for irrigation as well as packing sheds, cool room storage facilities and four residences.
Mr Pye's personal wealth was estimated last year at NZ$200 million ($187 million) by New Zealand's National Business Review.
He owns 25 per cent of the huge Canterbury dairy farm-owning company Dairy Holdings, which has 50 farms and 40,000 cows on more than 14,000 hectares of land. He also owns farms in Canterbury and in Tasmania, including Rushy Lagoon, Tasmania's largest dairy operation. His South Australian farming holdings include vegetable processor Zarella Holdings and Parilla Potatoes in the Murray Mallee region.
Mr Pye's son, Leighton, runs Pye Group, which owns two potato farms near Rakaia in mid-Canterbury that supplies potatoes to the McCain's factory in Timaru as well as five South Island dairy farms.
Colliers International's Jesse Manuel, who is selling the property with colleague Tim Altschwager, said while the current operator's core business was growing, packing, processing and marketing large volumes of fresh vegetables, the extensive shedding may suit an alternative use, such as free-stall dairy barns or the storage of fodder and other commodities.
The land, water entitlements, plant and equipment are being sold either as a going concern or sale of assets basis through an expressions of interest campaign that is closing on June 25.
