Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets group makes $300m bid for Vitalharvest Freehold Trust

Macquarie Group’s asset management arm has made a $300 million takeover offer of a citrus and berry operation. Here’s what we know.

ASSET manager Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets has lodged a $300 million bid for citrus and berry group Vitalharvest Freehold Trust.

MIRA, the asset management arm of Macquarie Group, is offering $1 a unit for all the securities in Vitalharvest by way of a trust scheme of arrangement.

But if it does not get the required approval of 75 per cents of VTH unitholders, MIRA was offering to buy all of the assets of the target for $300 million.

Vitalharvest has four berry properties in NSW and Tasmania and three citrus orchards in the Riverland region of South Australia which are all leased to Costa Group Holdings.

MIRA said that if its bid was successful, the seven acquired properties would continue to be operated by the Costa Group.

The $1 bid price was 27.4 per cent premium to VTH’s unit price of 78.5 cents at the close of trading on the Australian Securities Exchange on Friday and an 11.8 per cent premium to its adjusted net asset value of 89.4 cents a unit.

Vitalharvest has struggled to perform well since listing on the ASX at $1 a unit on August 1, 2018.

A MIRA spokesman said the Macquarie arm had a track record of managing agricultural assets similar to the VTH farms.

“It is a natural owner for assets of this nature,” he said.

The spokesman said no time limit had yet been placed on acceptance of the bid offer.

“These schemes of arrangement take time to work through,” he said.

Vitalharvest went into a trading halt this morning on announcement of the takeover bid.

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