Overseas buyer snaps up three Victorian Kiwi fruit orchards for $26 million

Seeka has provisionally sold three of its nine Australian orchards to an international buyer for more than $26 million.

Seeka has sold three of its Australian Kiwi orchards. Picture: Supplied

KIWI fruit powerhouse Seeka has sold three of its nine Australian orchards to a secret international buyer.

The New Zealand Exchange-listed company sealed the deal for its Austral, Lakes and Hayward orchards in the s Goulburn Valley for $26.5 million, pending approval from Australia’s Foreign Investment Review Board.

Seeka chief executive Michael Franks said he was unable to disclose the identity of the buyer while the sale process was the subject of a FIRB review, but confirmed it was an offshore entity.

The bundled sale is the second of its kind for Seeka, which divested a number of orchards in New Zealand’s Northland region and then brokered long-term leasing agreements to manage the properties.

The strategy is designed to raise capital to reduce debt and pay for orchard developed in New Zealand and Australia.

Seeka’s sale of the three Goulburn Valley orchards does not include any water entitlements the company owns to service the properties.

Before the sale, Seeka’s Australian arm held more than 270ha of orchards in production or development — ­almost two-thirds dedicated to Kiwi fruit, and the rest to European and Asian pears — and almost 280ha available for new development.

The Austral, Lakes and Hayward properties span a combined 199ha and are used to grow kiwi fruit.

A Treasury spokeswoman said applications for foreign investment screening could not be commented on “as they apply or could apply to particular cases”.

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