Murray River Organics sells Merbein West vineyard for $5.5m

Listed dried fruit and food manufacturer Murray River Organics has sold its Fifth Street Vineyard to an overseas buyer. Here are the details.

Murray River Organics has offloaded Fifth Street Vineyard to Manta Farms, which is managed by a US capital funds management company.

ASX-listed dried fruit and cereals producer Murray River Organics has sold one of its Sunraysia table grape properties for $5.5 million.

The sale was provisionally completed in June but Foreign Investment Review Board approval has only just been granted.

Fifth Street Vineyard has been owned for four years by Murray River Organics and was listed for sale in March to reduce debt and concentrate on other aspects of the business, which has recently pushed into the billion-dollar breakfast cereals market.

The company bought the 117ha Merbein West property for $10.4 million with the proceeds of its 2016 float and was hoping to sell it for more than $7.5 million. About 70.6ha has been planted to table grapes with a forecast yield of 1200 tonnes this year.

Murray River Organics managing director Valentina Tripp said the sale represented a milestone in the company’s turnaround strategy.

“We are well progressed with our non-core farm asset divestments, which includes the recent sale of our conventional citrus and wine land parcel at Nangiloc to the Costa Group.”

“With today’s announcement we have now secured over $10m in non-core asset sales, allowing us to focus on our core organic dried vine farming operations and growing our Murray River Organics branded food portfolio.

“We want to thank our farm management and operational teams at the site who have transformed the performance of the property, improving yield from approximately 460 tonnes in 2018 to over 1000 tonnes this season, a fantastic achievement.”

In 2019-20 Murray River Organics posted a loss of $39 million, bringing total losses since its float on the ASX four years ago to more than $116 million.

It is now undergoing a major five-year restructure that involves an aggressive asset realisation program.

In September it sold part of its 3040ha Nangiloc property to a subsidiary of horticulture giant Costa group for $4.5 million. The deal will see the company carve off 390ha, with final settlement expected early next year pending approval of a subdivision plan.

Fifth Street Vineyard has been sold to Manta Farms, which is managed by US-based RRG Capital Management.

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