THE good times experienced by many agricultural sectors has prompted the Sustainable Agriculture Fund chaired by Warrnambool dairy farmer Shirley Harlock to put its 17 farms throughout Australia on the market.
The fund’s chief executive officer Martin Newnham said the fund’s investors had decided to sell off its assets because “now is not a bad time to sell.”
The farm assets, which media reports have said are valued at about $180 million, include the 1445 hectare “Fintry” cropping farm at Lake Bolac, four dairy operations in Tasmania, a beef enterprise on King Island, the 9710ha “North Star” dryland cropping farm near the NSW/Queensland border and two irrigated cotton farms at Darlington Point in western NSW.
In 2009 AgCAP was appointed the trustee, manager and custodian of SAF which is an unlisted investment fund.
SAF’s entire portfolio comprised seven farms organised into five aggregations. The farms were located in diverse geographic regions across eastern Australia and in total comprised more than 23,000 hectares of land.
Ms Harlock, who is also involved in a prime lamb and cropping enterprise near Naracoorte in South Australia, has been the fund’s chairwoman since it was established in 2009.
Mr Newnham said the fund’s investors, which included superannuation funds, a university and former AFL chairman Mike Fitzpatrick, had decided the fund’s entire investment portfiolio should be sold.
He said while the fund believed in the long-term value of the assets, it understood it had to create liquidity for investors.
AgCAP said ABARES data confirmed that SAF has delivered top quartile performance in the three years ending 2015-2016 with 2016-2017 expected to also deliver top quartile performance.
AgCAP said the decision to put the assets on the market was a unanimous decision by all investors and would provide an opportunity for them to realise the value achieved by investments made on each of the farms to increase productivity, while providing purchasers an opportunity to benefit from the next phase of growth.
Mr Newnham said the SAF portfolio was very well constructed and had delivered investors steady income returns, capital appreciation and annual distributions in recent years.
“These are very good assets that still have development potential. The interest we are receiving indicates the sales process will be highly competitive,” he said.
Commercial real estate company CBRE has been appointed to to sell the assets that could be sold individually or collectively, Mr Newnham said.
He said AgCap hoped to get involved in another fund at the end of the sale process..
Now is not a bad time to sell.
- Martin Newnham