August 3, 2021

By Lynda Kiernan-Stone, Global AgInvesting Media

Global investment company Proterra Investment Partners is divesting its Australian farm portfolio – the Corinella Group Pty Ltd consisting of 49 farms across southeastern Australia – with expectations of fetching A$350 million (US$256.8 million). 

Encompassing more than 22,500 hectares (55,599 acres), the bulk of the assets are grain growing operations situated in Western Victoria and the Wimmera.

Included in the portfolio are farms in Lake Bolac, Donald, Navarre, Lake Batyo Catyo, and Naracoorte, with the property in Naracoorte in South Australia being irrigated with water rights of 5,778 megaliters.

The assets are being sold as four aggregations:

~ The Naracoorte aggregation
~ The Donald aggregation with four properties
~ The Stawell aggregation with five properties
~ And, the Lake Bolac aggregation with five properties

Various properties include a number of farms, bringing the number of individual farms to 49.

The collection of assets is being offered either as a single portfolio, or in piecemeal as separate farms, according to LAWD, the Melbourne-based selling agent handling the sale, and the same broker who also had a hand in the sale of Lawson Grain, a 105,000-hectare (260,000-acre) corporate grain and oilseed farming venture with properties across New South Wales and Western Australia.

Based on expectations, the portfolio is being priced at approximately A$15,555 (US$11,500) per hectare – a price that has been met in other high-value farmland sales in Wimmera earlier this year, or even exceeded in the case of farmland near Ararat selling for a record-breaking A$23,582 (US$17,434) per  hectare.

A particular reason for the sale of the Corinella portfolio was not disclosed. However, record-breaking sale prices like the one just cited, combined with favorable growing conditions, and strong grain prices have been the impetus for large-scale ag properties being listed amid strong competition between bidders.

March of this year seems to have been a watershed.

At the beginning of the month, Hancock Agriculture, the second largest producer of beef in Australia, and its joint venture partner S. Kidman and Co., appointed Elders to market a portfolio of seven of its Northern Australia beef production assets.

Included in the sale are more than 1.8 million hectares (about 4.5 million acres) of prime Australian grazing land, reflecting nearly 20 percent of the total 10 million hectares owned by Hancock Agriculture and S. Kidman, 108,500 head of cattle, plus progeny, along with Phoenix Park, a 20,000-head feedlot and export station located near Katherine, rounding out a portfolio that has the capacity to turn off as many as 45,000 head of cattle per year.

Later that same month, Macquarie placed Lawson Grains on the market – a holding that has amassed more than 70 farms that produced more than 250,000 tons of grains and oilseeds last year to create a strategically curated collection of holdings geographically diversified across multiple grain belts and climates.

Opportune growing conditions, together with Macquarie Crop Partners (the fund-owner of Lawson Grains) reaching maturation, and increasing land values, have seemingly coalesced to create an opportune time to sell – a common theme driving large-scale asset sales across Australia.

– Lynda Kiernan-Stone is editor with GAI Media, and is managing editor and daily contributor for Global AgInvesting’s AgInvesting Weekly News and  Agtech Intel News, as well as HighQuest Group’s Oilseed & Grain News. She can be reached at lkiernan-stone@globalaginvesting.com.