Cobran Station near Hay in the NSW Riverina for sale

One of Australia’s biggest irrigated cropping and pastoral properties has hit the market as the spring rural property market heats up.

Cobran Station near Hay in the NSW Riverina is back on the market.

One of Australia’s biggest irrigated cropping and pastoral properties has hit the market with expectations of up to $50 million, as the spring rural property selling season fires up.

The 14,149-hectare Cobran Station near Hay in the NSW Riverina has been listed by Westchester Group of Australia, a subsidiary of New York-based teacher superannuation giant TIAA-CREF.

With 12km of Murrumbidgee River frontage, Cobran is regarded as one of the largest irrigated row crop and pastoral holdings in the Murrumbidgee Valley.

According to selling agent Sam Triggs of Inglis Rural Property, the property includes 5,748 hectares of first-class flood irrigation with scope to develop a further 2000-2500 hectares of irrigation for annual row-crops, pasture and/or permanent crops.

Significant water entitlements are also available for sale with or without the land. When

Cobran Station has been owned by Westchester Group since 2012. It is currently leased to Auscott Limited, backed by Canada’s PSP Investments, with the lease due to expire early next year.

According to Mr Triggs, the property has produced more than 200,000 bales of cotton in the past seven years, averaging about 30,000 bales annually at an average of around 12 bales per hectare.

Cobran also boasts 10,500 megalitres of water storage capacity on farm, supported by substantial on-farm river and groundwater pumping infrastructure, which could be utilised to enhance production for a diverse range of agricultural enterprises.

“The vendor has provided clear instructions to offer Cobran Station with or without the significant river and groundwater water entitlements, I cannot emphasise this enough,” Mr Triggs said.

Westchester Australia chief executive Matt Bull said the business was attracted to the property due to “the scale it provided our portfolio at the time, coupled with the opportunity to further develop the land to increase production in an area/region which we felt had massive potential for a diverse range of agricultural enterprises”.

“(We) thought that the opportunity in the Lower-Murrumbidgee valley was going to be similar to what had been experienced in California, only decades behind and on a smaller scale.

“The construction of local infrastructure (i.e. processing facilities) and the establishment of the associated local services (over this past 10 years) to support the huge growth in annual and permanent crop production throughout the region, supports this theory and the case for a new owner to capitalise on this recent investment, and/or possibly continue developing the property to further enhance productivity in whatever core enterprise(s) they may choose.”

TIAA-CREF is one of the biggest investors in Australian agriculture. In its latest annual farmland report released in July, TIAA-CREF said its Australian farming operations had grown to 383,078 hectares in the 12 months to December 2020, worth $US1.4 billion ($A1.82 billion).

Cobran was last listed for sale in 2018 it included more than 18,000 megalitres of water entitlements.