GO.FARM targets $300m for new agricultural fund

Underdeveloped farmland is in the gun for a billion-dollar Australian agribusiness wanting to expand even further.

Billion-dollar Australian agricultural investor GO.FARM has started a $300 million capital raise in launching their new Responsible Agriculture Fund.

GO.FARM is planning to invest a total of $600 million (equity and debt) to acquire and transform a portfolio of geographically-diversified agricultural assets, pursuing a gross asset level internal rate of return of 15-19 per cent.

It is also aiming to generate a net fund internal rate of return of 12-15 per cent per annum.

GO.FARM has also secured an irrigated development asset which will seed the fund, however details of this acquistion remain undisclosed.

“Simply buying the market is not the path to real agricultural investment success or delivering positive impact,” GO.FARM founder and managing director Liam Lenaghan said.

“That requires deep domain expertise and a willingness to be deliberate in asset transformation to drive a step change in productivity, sustainable earnings and deliver positive impact within regional and rural communities.

GO.FARM managing director Liam Lenaghan.

“The feedback we’ve had from investors is that they’d like fund exposure where they can get four or five of our best ideas in one investment, giving them geographical spread across a number of climate zones, water sources and crop types.

“This is what the Responsible Agriculture Fund will deliver.”

GO.FARM’s announcement of the new investment fund is the latest in a string of high-profile moves by the Melbourne-headquartered company, which now has more than $1.1bn in assets under management.

Last month GO.FARM purchased more than 3300ha of mixed farmland west of Ballarat, acquiring the Dean family’s historic 2336ha Eurambeen Station, at Beaufort, and 979ha Grandview, near Ercildoune.

It also announced a $200 million investment partnership with Qantas Super, who will add to $150 million already invested in two GO.FARM assets – the Riverina Trust and Sandmount Farms – to convert more than 5000ha of land with substantial water holdings into horticultural crops such as almonds.

GO.FARM, partly backed by Costa Asset Management - the investment vehicle of Robert Costa, the late Anthony Costa and their families - is one of Australia’s largest producers of field tomatoes, almonds and farm grains, oilseeds, pulses, citrus and wine grapes, managing about 88,000ha of land and 94,000ML of water in NSW, Victoria and Tasmania.