Who Owns Australia’s Farms 2020 — Top 20 by value
AgJournal profiles the top 20 investors in Australian agriculture by value in 2020.
THE top 20 investors in Australian agriculture:
1.PSP INVESTMENTS
$3 BILLION-PLUS
INVESTMENT in Australian farmland in recent years by the world-famous Royal Canadian Mounted Police has risen from a trot into a full-blown multi-billion dollar gallop.
The Public Sector Pension Investment Board, which manages the superannuation funds of the Canadian public sector and armed forces in addition to the 30,000 member-strong mounted police, has quickly become a major force in Australian agriculture, owning more than 1.3 million hectares, with land and water investments exceeding an estimated $3 billion.
In the past 20 months alone, the Montreal-based fund has been involved in more than $2.3 billion worth of transactions, including two of the biggest in Australian agricultural history.
In February it finalised its $854 million takeover of the ASX-listed Webster Limited – Australia’s fourth-oldest company and one of the nation’s biggest landholders with more than 340,000 hectares and 153,000 megalitres of water. Late last year PSP paid $860 million for 12,000 hectares of almond plantations near Robinvale in northern Victoria and almost 90,000 megalitres of high-security water. The water component of the deal was worth $490 million.
Both sales came just months after PSP teamed up with the Robinson family’s Australian Food and Fibre to purchase cotton giant Auscott’s Midkin vertically integrated aggregation near Moree in northern NSW for an estimated $300 million.
Additionally, in late 2018, PSP paid $208 million for a majority stake in the BFB cropping business, which owns 44,000 hectares around Temora in southern NSW, after shelling out $132.7 million in a joint venture with AFF for the 9593-hectare Bengerang and Darling Farms business in northern NSW. It also paid $16 million for a 519-hectare vineyard at Cullulleraine, west of Mildura, in Victoria.
PSP also boasts financial interests in Hewitt Cattle Australia, which runs 11 cattle stations in Queensland, NSW and the Northern Territory covering more than 868,800 hectares, the Stahmann Farms pecans and macadamia business in NSW and South Australia, and Daybreak Cropping with its seven aggregations totalling more than 75,000 hectares in Victoria, NSW, Queensland and Western Australia. In February this year, Daybreak paid a whopping $97 million for the 22,000-hectare Erregulla Plains property at Mingenew in Western Australia.
Through Hewitt Cattle Australia it is also a shareholder in the Arcadian Organic and Natural Meat business.
PSP Investments has $185 billion in assets under management and its global investment in natural resources – including agriculture and timber, and oil and gas – is $7.5 billion globally. Australasia accounts for 58 per cent of its “geographic diversification”.
It also has agriculture interests in Brazil, Canada, Chile, New Zealand and the US.
2. MACQUARIE AGRICULTURE
$2.7 BILLION
IN A bank statement like no other, financial services giant Macquarie Group’s $2.7 billion faith in Australian agriculture shows no signs of waning.
Through three agriculture-specific investment funds – Paraway Pastoral Company, Lawson Grains and more recently Viridis Ag – Macquarie Agriculture oversees 4.7 million hectares of land, which runs more than 220,000 cattle, 250,000 sheep and produces a huge variety of irrigated and dryland crops.
Macquarie first dipped its toe into agricultural waters in 2007, with the establishment of Paraway Pastoral and its purchase of the famed Pooginook Merino property and stud at Jerilderie in NSW. The cropping-specific Lawson Grains fund was launched five years later, with Viridis Ag following in 2017.
Paraway now covers 4.46 million hectares, spread across 28 aggregations in Queensland, NSW and Victoria; Lawson operates 10 aggregations in Western Australia and NSW spanning 88,425 hectares, and; Viridis has put together a portfolio of 100,800 hectares in Western Australia, NSW, Queensland and South Australia.
The Paraway properties produce more than 30,000 tonnes of beef and 1460 tonnes of wool as well as 170,000 sheep for sale annually. The fund’s biggest footprint is in Queensland, where it owns 3.96 million hectares, including the 1.5 million-hectare Davenport Downs Station near Winton.
In NSW it owns 18 aggregations covering 487,235 hectares, 272,085 hectares of which is western Riverina grazing country, including the Mungadal Station aggregation at Hay.
In Victoria, Paraway’s investments are the 8244-hectare Barton Station at Moyston, bought from Hassad Australia in 2018, and the 3024-hectare Beckworth Court at Clunes, purchased in 2016 for more than $15 million.
The Lawson fund owns six farms totalling 52,061 hectares in Western Australia and four NSW farms with a total area of 36,361 hectares.
Like Lawson Grains, Viridis has a sizeable investment in Western Australia, with six properties covering 71,100 hectares. The fund’s most high-profile acquisition to date came last year when it bought a 49 per cent stake in the 93,000-hectare Cubbie Station at Dirranbandi in Queensland for a reported $200 million.
Last year it also paid about $90 million for three properties totalling more than 15,000 hectares in the Golden Triangle region of northern NSW. In 2018, along with Paraway, it purchased nine properties, covering almost 100,000 hectares, from Qatari-owned Hassad Australia in a deal worth about $300 million. Both funds later divested about 16,000 hectares of the Hassad land in NSW.
3. TIAA-CREF
$1.7 BILLION
THERE are heavy hitters in Australian agriculture and then there’s TIAA-CREF.
The biggest investor in agriculture globally, the New York-based Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America and College Retirement Equities Fund, through its asset manager subsidiary Nuveen, owns a whopping 286,000 hectares of mostly cropping country in Australia, spread across 71 properties and aggregations. Its land and water assets are rumoured to be valued north of $1.7 billion.
A Fortune 100 company with more than five million policyholders and US$1 trillion in assets under management, TIAA-CREF has been investing in agriculture since 2007. Under its model, it purchases properties and then mostly leases them out to local farmers and agribusinesses or operates them in partnership.
According to Nuveen’s latest farmland sustainability report, it managed more than 850,000 hectares of country globally in 2018, up from 769,000 hectares the previous year. By holding size, Australia accounted for 37 per cent of its business (down from 40 per cent in 2017), behind Brazil (39 per cent – up from 38 per cent), but ahead of the US (16 per cent – up from 13 per cent), Poland (4 per cent), Romania (3 per cent – down from 4 per cent), Chile and New Zealand.
In Australia, TIAA-CREF’s biggest footprint is in Western Australia, with a portfolio of 22 properties and 131,900 hectares of cropping land, and NSW, with 122,750 hectares spread across 36 properties.
It has a further 25,414 hectares across eight properties in Queensland and 6328 hectares and four properties in Victoria. Its biggest properties are in Western Australia with the 14,391-hectare Bedford Harbour at Munglinup, west of Esperance, and the 13,710-hectare Watheroo about 200km north of Perth at Watheroo.
In NSW, its portfolio includes the 13,550-hectare Mascott at Bellata in northern NSW and the 8245-hectare irrigated cropping property Cobran Station near Hay in the Riverina, which was withdrawn from the market last year after being listed in 2018 with expectations of more than $100 million.
Last year, TIAA-CREF purchased 4000 hectares of dryland cropping country near Moree from the Turnbull family for a reported $28.4 million.
That took its investments in the Moree, Boggabri, North Star and Goondiwindi districts of northern NSW and southern Queensland to 52,000 hectares of cropping land spread across 13 properties and aggregations.
It has one property devoted to permanent plantings – mainly almonds – the 870-hectare Huddersfield at Darlington Point in the NSW Riverina.
4. RURAL FUNDS GROUP
$950 MILLION
VARIETY is the spice of life for the ASX-listed Rural Funds Group, which has large-scale investments in almonds, beef, cotton, macadamias and vineyards across NSW, Queensland, South Australia and Victoria.
The company oversees 692,182 hectares spread across 24 properties and aggregations, with assets valued at $950.2 million.
Rural Funds’ almond portfolio is the most lucrative, worth $425.9 million, followed by beef cattle ($274.7 million), vineyards ($64.1 million), cotton ($51.4 million) and macadamias ($14.4 million).
The almond business totals 24,897 hectares across four aggregations in the Darlington Point and Hillston districts of the NSW Riverina, while the company’s beef operations cover 659,056 hectares in nine locations, mostly in Queensland.
Its largest beef acquisition came in 2017 when it snapped up the Natal Downs, Longton and Narellan properties near Charters Towers in Queensland in a deal worth $72.5 million.
Last month Rural Funds listed its 3841-hectare Mooral property at Hillston, with 808 hectares of almonds and more than 15,000 megalitres of water, for sale with an asking price of more than $100 million. Rural Funds’ focus on macadamias is centred on Bundaberg in Queensland while its vineyards are mostly located in the Adelaide Hills, Barossa Valley and Coonawarra wine districts of South Australia.
5. WARAKIRRI ASSET MANAGEMENT
$800 MILLION-PLUS
WARAKIRRI Asset Management is another of Australian agriculture’s multi-million-dollar behemoths, overseeing about $800 million worth of assets.
Under the separate banners of Aurora Dairies, Warakirri Cropping and Daybreak Cropping, the company operates across almost 160,000 hectares spread over 39 aggregations.
Aurora Dairies, formerly Warakirri Dairies, runs 12 farms totalling 4645 hectares in Victoria’s north, southwest and Gippsland regions and South Australia’s South East and is one of Australia’s largest milk producers, with 8000 cows producing about 70 million litres of milk a year.
The Warakirri Cropping business is one of the nation’s biggest grain growers, with the potential to produce 200,000 tonnes annually. Its assets are spread across almost 80,000 hectares in Western Australia, Queensland, NSW and Victoria.
Warakirri’s most recent venture has been as the investment manager for Daybreak Cropping, backed by the Canadian Public Sector Pension Investment Board (see separate listing). Daybreak owns seven properties totalling more than 75,000 hectares, including the Erregulla Plains property in Western Australia which it bought for $97 million earlier this year.
6. GINA RINEHART HANCOCK PROSPECTING/OUTBACK BEEF
$700-800 MILLION
MINING magnate Gina Rinehart is never one to shy away from a challenge. Which is handy given Australia’s richest woman is at the helm of one of the nation’s biggest pastoral empires, overseeing more than 9.7 million hectares of land with the capacity to run more than 340,000 cattle.
Rinehart’s own Hancock Prospecting business accounts for about 2.2 million hectares of this, with more than 15 properties in the Northern Territory, NSW, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia. She also owns the majority stake in Outback Beef, an Australian-Chinese consortium that purchased iconic pastoral business S Kidman and Co for $386.5 million in 2016.
Founded by cattle baron Sir Sidney Kidman in 1899, S Kidman and Co is the nation’s biggest landholder with 12 stations spread across 7.5 million hectares in Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory. The properties, operated as pastoral leases, are home to 171,000 cattle producing beef for domestic and export markets.
7. AUSTRALIAN AGRICULTURAL COMPANY
$738 MILLION
ALMOST 200 years after it was founded, the Australian Agricultural Company only has eyes for the future.
Established in 1824 by an act of British parliament, AACo is one of Australia’s oldest continually-run companies, running the nation’s largest beef herd of 400,000 cattle occupying seven million hectares across Queensland and the Northern Territory. The AACo footprint is equal to about 1 per cent of the nation’s land mass.
Now an ASX-listed company, AACo’s stations and improvements are valued at $738 million. Its biggest investor is UK billionaire businessman Joe Lewis, who owns a 45 per cent-plus stake.
At 1.22 million hectares, the iconic Brunette Downs Station north of Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory is the company’s largest holding. It also owns several stations in the Gulf of Carpentaria region of Queensland, which were subject to significant flooding early last year, resulting in the death of about 43,000 AACo cattle.
Despite significant movement in the northern cattle industry in recent years, the company has been quiet on the property transaction front, with its most recent purchase in 2015, of the 48,600-hectare Thorner Station at Mt Isa in Queensland.
8. NORTH AUSTRALIAN PASTORAL COMPANY
$650 MILLION-PLUS
THE purchase of the 135,000-hectare Mantuan Downs Station in central Queensland earlier this year has taken the North Australian Pastoral Company’s investments in farmland to more than six million hectares worth about $650 million.
NAPCO, which was founded in 1877, purchased Mantuan Downs from pastoral giant Clark and Tait for $92.6 million including 12,000 cattle. Bare, the property was valued at just shy of $80 million.
NAPCO runs about 200,000 cattle on 14 stations totalling 6.6 million hectares in Queensland and the Northern Territory. The biggest property in its stable is the 1.64 million-hectare Alexandria Station at Camooweal, which was the company’s first acquisition in 1877. Its most recent addition prior to Mantuan Downs was of the 100,000-hectare Portland Downs property at Isisford in Queensland, purchased from Dutch company GP Cattle in 2018.
NAPCO is majority owned by the Queensland Government-backed Queensland Investment Corporation, which paid $400 million for a 79 per cent stake in 2016. Tasmania’s Foster family, which first bought in to NAPCO in 1937, owns the remaining 21 per cent.
9. CONSOLIDATED PASTORAL COMPANY
$600 MILLION-PLUS
BRITISH investor Guy Hands is leading a consortium to buy the remainder of what was once one of Australia’s biggest pastoral empires, Consolidated Pastoral Company.
Hands is chairman and founder of UK-based private equity firm Terra Firma Capital Partners, the majority shareholder of CPC. Last October CPC confirmed Hands and his family, together with CPC management, were “progressing a proposal to acquire the company”.
It followed an announcement that CPC would divest its portfolio, worth about $1 billion.
The company last year off-loaded the 733,000-hectare Argyle Downs, Newry and Auvergne stations in Western Australia and the Northern Territory to Vietnam investment group Clean Agriculture and International Tourism for $135 million.
It also sold about $70 million worth of property to Northern Territory pastoral identity Sterling Buntine, including the 23,000-hectare Comely and Mapala stations at Bauhinia in Queensland and Mimong Station at Kyuna in Queensland. Last June it sold the 245,550-hectare Ucharonidge Station in the Northern Territory for $30 million.
The slimmed-down CPC portfolio covers 3.2 million hectares with a carrying capacity of 300,000 cattle and is said to be worth $600-$700 million.
10. HANCOCK AGRICULTURAL INVESTMENT GROUP
$600 MILLION-PLUS
FOUNDED in 1990, Hancock Agricultural Investment Group manages about US$3.1 billion worth of farmland globally. Its clients consist of institutional investors. Its assets span more than 190,000 hectares centred on the US, including California, the Mid West, the Mississippi Delta and the Pacific Northwest. Its Australian operations comprise 43,875 hectares in NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Queensland, including almond and macadamia plantings. Earlier this year it paid more than $120 million for 19,877 hectares of cotton and almond farms near Hillston in southern NSW from Harvard University’s endowment fund.
Last year Hancock purchased the 18,000-hectare Norman Farming aggregation near Toobeah in Queensland. It also sold a portfolio of macadamia orchards near Bundaberg for almost $60 million.
11. GOFARM
$500 MILLION-PLUS
WITH a portfolio of land and water assets exceeding $600 million, goFarm is a Melbourne-based, Australian-owned agriculture investor and manager.
Its assets include more than 44,000 hectares of prime agricultural and horticultural land growing grain, oilseeds and pulses, citrus, berries, wine grapes, avocados and nut crops. Its managing director is Liam Lenaghan and chairman is Costa co-founder Robert Costa.
Last year goFarm’s Akuna Trust began raising $100 million to purchase 28 dairy farms on the Murray Valley Katunga deep lead aquifer, in a bid to convert them to almond blocks. In 2016 it purchased the 900-hectare Del Rios vineyard near the junction of the Murray and Murrumbidgee rivers at Kenley, north of Swan Hill, and its 5476 megalitres of water for a reported $25 million. In 2015 it purchased more than 4200 hectares around Swan Hill and Robinvale, in addition to 1000 hectares of the Lamattina property at Robinvale.
12. AUSTON CORPORATION
$500 MILLION
AUSTON is the Australian arm of Canada’s Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board, which was established in 1991 and administers pensions for 183,000 teachers. AustOn owns about $500 million worth of almond and avocado farms in South Australia and Victoria, producing 7500 tonnes of avocados and 7000 tonnes of almonds. Its investments include the 2878-hectare Margooya and Canarvon properties at Robinvale, which it purchased for $115 million in 2015, as well as the 360-hectare Jasper Farms – Australia’s second-biggest avocado grower – at Busselton in Western Australia which it bought in 2018.
13. KILTER RURAL
$440 MILLION
KILTER Rural has about $440 million invested in Australian agriculture assets, particularly farmland and water. Founded in 2004 supported by an initial $175 million investment by VicSuper, the business has put together large parcels of land, including several in the Swan Hill, Kerang and Lake Boga districts of northern Victoria, to grow crops that maximise water efficiency. In March last year it launched the Australian Farmlands Funds with a capital-raising target of $300 million and promised annual investor returns of 10-12 per cent.
14. AUSTRALIAN FOOD AND AGRICULTURE
$400 MILLION-PLUS
COVERING almost a quarter of a million hectares, the Australian Food and Agriculture empire is considered a major jewel in the NSW mixed-farming crown. The portfolio, owned by the Bell family as well as businessmen Alistair Provan and Ray Dalio, comprises 13 properties around Coonamble, Hay and Deniliquin growing 22,000 hectares of dryland and 11,000 hectares of irrigated crops, running 4000 breeding cows and 79,000 Merino ewes (including the famous Boonoke and Wanganella flocks). AFA also owns 54,693 megalitres of water licences. It was listed for sale two years ago with an asking price of more than $330 million.
15. HUGHES FAMILY
$400 MILLION-PLUS
HUGHES Pastoral Group and its sister Georgina Pastoral Company operate across more than 2.8 million hectares in Queensland, NSW and the Northern Territory worth more than $400 million.
Run by Peter and Jane Hughes and their sons, Sam and Fred, and based at the 140,000-hectare Tierwoomba Station at Nebo in Queensland, the businesses aim to deliver premium beef to Australian and international markets and in more recent years have shifted focus to breeding purebred Wagyu.
16. MH PREMIUM FARMS
$350-$400 MILLION
OWNED by UK-based Australian billionaire Sir Michael Hintze, MH Premium Farms was founded in 2007 and now operates across more than 72,000 hectares and 40 properties in NSW, Queensland and Victoria. MHPF’s portfolio produces prime lambs, wool, beef and grows cereal and oilseed crops as well as irrigated cotton and sugar. Its biggest property is the 12,548-hectare Marshmead at Walgett in NSW. MHPF’s most recent purchase was last year when it paid $21 million for the 3651-hectare mixed-farming property Canomodine at Canowindra in NSW from Viridis Ag.
17. STANBROKE PASTORAL
$350 MILLION-PLUS
ONCE one of Australia’s biggest landholders, Stanbroke Pastoral remains a massive force in Australian agriculture with more than $350 million in assets. The company, privately owned by the Menegazzo family, was established in the 1960s and is now a fully integrated beef business operating eight cattle stations covering 1.6 million hectares in Queensland’s Gulf country. It also manages 46 properties in Queensland’s Darling Downs, operates a 30,000-head feedlot and has its own abattoir.
18. JUMBUCK PASTORAL COMPANY
$350 MILLION
JUMBUCK Pastoral Company is an Australian icon. Founded by the MacLachlan family in 1888 it is now one of the nation’s biggest sheep and cattle producers, owning 11 stations spanning 4.94 million hectares in South Australia, Western Australia, the Northern Territory and NSW, employing up to 170 staff during peak times. It has two stations topping one million hectares – Rawlinna near Kalgoorlie in Western Australia and Commonwealth Hill at Coober Pedy in South Australia, which run 60,000 and 30,000 Merino sheep respectively.
19. AJ&PA MCBRIDE
$300-$400 MILLION
BASED in South Australia, the sixth-generation AJ&PA McBride Pty Ltd operates across 1.1 million hectares and boasts assets of between $300 and $400 million. The company is now owned by 102 McBride family shareholders with a strong focus on wool. Among its more recent purchases were the 47,000-hectare Telopea Downs property in western Victoria for more than $70 million in 2018 and the 224,293-hectare Yudnapinna Station near Port Augusta in 2016.
20. HARRIS FAMILY
UNKNOWN
BROTHERS Peter and Malcolm Harris and their respective families have staked a huge claim in Australian agriculture in recent decades. Peter and wife Jane have significant pastoral and irrigation interests in northern NSW, including the 33,000-hectare Bemmery, Janbeth and Latoka properties at Bourke and Brewon Station at Walgett, which they purchased from Clyde Agriculture in 2009.
They also own farms in the Moree, Carinda, Rowena and Brewarrina districts. Malcolm, who was part of a five-member syndicate that made a last-minute bid for S Kidman and Co in 2016, runs Cleveland Agriculture and has concentrated his efforts further north. His most recent purchases include the 852,000-hectare Nockatunga Station at Thargomindah, which he bought from Consolidated Pastoral Company in 2018 for about $50 million.
MORE AGJOURNAL
The state of Australia’s dairy industry
An average farm with 200 cattle will lose more than $146,000 if no step-ups are announced this season, as farmers say they are “working for nothing”.
‘Untapped opportunity’: How to make money from regen ag
The boss of one of Australia’s biggest agricultural funds offers an insight into the future of farming and investor appetite for climate-based solutions.