Canadians pay $180m to buy major stake in Qld egg producer

Australia’s largest foreign agricultural investor has acquired majority ownership of a Queensland family’s egg company, adding it to their $6.5b portfolio.

PSP Investments has acquired a strategic interest in Ellerslie Free Range Farms. Picture: File (Zoe Phillips).

Australia’s largest institutional agricultural investor, Canada’s mammoth PSP Investments, has made its first foray into the nation’s egg industry, buying into a family-owned producer.

PSP has acquired a strategic interest in Ellerslie Free Range Farms, partnering with the Hall family who founded the enterprise with a single farm in the 1960s.

The value and terms of the deal remain undisclosed, but PSP reportedly paid $180 million to acquire a 60 per cent, majority share of the company. The deal was approved by the Foreign Investment Review Board.

Located in Queensland’s Darling Downs region at Millmerran, 80km southwest of Toowoomba, Ellerslie has grown to become a leading Australian egg producer, employing about 400 people.

Ellerslie chief executive officer Greg Quinn said the transaction would not result in any changes to the business, but would help the company pursue greater free-range egg production.

“We know that PSP Investments’ global scale will help us accelerate our plans to significantly increase cage-free production in coming years,” Mr Quinn said.

“I look forward to working with PSP Investments and I know that we are absolutely like-minded in our shared commitment to the highest standards of quality, sustainability and animal welfare.”

PSP Investments senior managing director, real assets, and global head of natural

resources Marc Drouin said the partnership continued its trend of investing with leading farming families as part of its $6.5 billion Australian agriculture portfolio.

PSP Investments senior managing director real assets, and global head of natural resources Marc Drouin.

“Over more than 60 years, the Hall family has built one of Australia’s leading egg producers and contributed to building one of the country’s most iconic brands,” he said.

“Our investment in this business is very much aligned with our approach of investing alongside best-in-class, local operators who share our values, long-term horizon and commitment to sustainable farming.”

In the Australian cattle sector, PSP Investments partnered with the Hewitt family to form the Hewitt Cattle Company, running 120,000-plus cattle across more than 2.2 million hectares on 20 major aggregations of groups of cattle and sheep stations from Julia Creek in the Gulf Country to central Australia and northern NSW.

PSP also runs its large-scale cotton and irrigated cropping division, Australian Food and Fibre, in partnership with cotton growers David and Joe Robinson.

The partnership was formed after PSP bought ASX company Websters for $854 million in 2019, and delisted it from the stock exchange.

In 2022, PSP also bought 35 vineyards from the Casella family in Griffith, NSW and South Australia, in a deal that will guarantee the Casellas’ long-term supply of grapes for their global Yellowtail and Peter Lehmann wine brands, for more than $150 million.