Organic fruit producer Murray River Organics to sell $20 million worth of Sunraysia property

An organic dried fruit company is selling $20 million worth of Sunraysia farmland in an effort to drive down debt.

Sunraysia grape growing enterprise Fifth Street, at Merbein West, was bought in 2016 and is now up for sale as Murray River Organics liquidates assets to lower debt.

EMBATTLED organic dried food producer Murray River Organics is looking to offload $20 million worth of farming property in Sunraysia as part of a three-year plan to turn a profit.

The company is in its first year of a major restructure following two years of significant losses of almost $72 million.

Part of the plan led by new chief executive Valentia Tripp and chairman Andrew Monk is an aggressive asset realisation program, beginning with the sale of two of the company’s 11 farms – its 3042ha property at Nangiloc and its Fifth Street vineyard, a 118ha table grape property.

Fifth Street at Merbein West is currently on the market, with the property last valued at $13.5 million and has 70ha of table grape plantings with a forecast yield of 1200 tonnes this year. It was purchased with the proceeds of Murray River Organic’s float in 2016 for $10.4 million.

Nangiloc is expected to fetch more than $6.5 million. The property has about 2300ha of arable land available for planting.

Sale proceeds will be used to reduce the company’s debt, which has been whittled back to $33 million from $53 million via a $25 million capital raising last month.

Murray River Organics started with an organic dried fruit vineyard at Merbein in 2010, and was listed on the Australian Securities Exchange four years ago with ambitious plans of dominating the organic dried fruit space and rivalling the success of fellow fledgling listed organic company Bellamy’s Organic. Earlier this month, ownership of the company was largely vested into the hands of billionaire small-cap investor Alex Waislitz’s listed investment company Thorney Opportunities, which increased its stake in MRO to 43 per cent.

Mr Waislitz said Mr Thorney “remains supportive” of MRO, its management team and business model. “While we cannot predict the ultimate impact of the coronavirus pandemic, Murray River is in much better shape now than it was a few months ago … (and) has its best chance in a long time of delivering on its potential,” Mr Waislitz said.

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