Danny Thomas and John Nicoletti put Ulupna Pastoral farms on market to free up capital

Dozens of farms spanning a combined 15,000 hectares across northern Victoria have hit the market. All have been accumulated over the past two years.

Angus breeding is a focus of the mixed-farming operation, along with grain production.

More than 60 farms covering 15,000 hectares managed by Ulupna Pastoral Company have been placed on the market for sale and leaseback or as a co-investment opportunity.

The farms — owned or contracted to buy by the Murray River Land Trust — are within 35km of Strathmerton in northern Victoria and have been accumulated within the past two years.

Trustee company Murray River Land Pty Ltd and Ulupna Pastoral Company are both owned by former CBRE real estate guru Danny Thomas and Western Australia’s once largest grain grower Giovanni “John” Nicoletti.

The pair were building the aggregation into a big mixed farming operation, which included Angus breeding and grain production.

Murray River Land Trust is selling all of its properties “owned, contracted and optioned” under the Murray River Land Trust portfolio through real estate agency LAWD and Map19.

Map19 is a finance consulting firm specialising in agriculture, established by Damian Bryce.

Mr Bryce said there was interest from overseas and local investors in the portfolio.

“This is a great opportunity to transform the land into a large scale irrigated cropping platform,” he said.

He denied rumours MRL/UPC was experiencing financial difficulties.

“There’s the normal challenges you have as you grow quickly and we’re going through the sale process,” he said.

A source told The Weekly Times at least four farmers have recently pulled out of their sale contracts after waiting 12-18 months to be paid for their properties.

Mr Bryce said many of the 60 properties were negotiated on deferred terms.

“We are still working with a couple of farmers in relation to their settlements,” he said.

Mr Thomas, who left CBRE in October last year to “go farming”, became a director of LAWD on December 22 last year.

He also took a 19.7 per cent stake in LAWD through a new company, Danny Thomas Consulting Pty Ltd, established the same day.

Only two months earlier, he denied industry rumours he was going to join LAWD, established by former CBRE employees.

LAWD and Map19 are advertising sale of the land with 20,000 megalitres of annual water allocation through “high security surface water, deep groundwater and shallow groundwater”.

“UPC (Ulupna Pastoral Company) employs a highly skilled management team and has recently made a significant investment in new fit-for-purpose plant and equipment,” they said in an advertisement.

The advertising pitches the aggregation of properties as a “transformational land use project developing former grazing land (dairy, beef and sheep) to high value irrigated cropping land”.

“Along with taking the productive capacity of the land to its highest and best use, the proponents are also repurposing former dairy infrastructure to facilitate custom feeding for clients seeking to background and finish beef cattle and prime lambs for their branded red meat programs,” it said.

“Fresh capital is now required to complete the next stage of this significant project, which will include circa $30 million of irrigation redesign, including 10,000ML of above groundwater storages and the installation of lateral move and centre pivot irrigators.”

Two months ago, UPC placed 89 pieces of equipment, on the market, saying they were “not fit for purpose”.

Mr Bryce said the company had now spent $5-$6 million on new equipment.

MORE

THOMAS AND NICOLETTI BUILD HUGE ANGUS EMPIRE

DANNY THOMAS LEAVES CBRE TO GO FARMING

ULUPNA SELLS TRACTORS, OTHER FARM EQUIPMENT