Lawson Grains portfolio listed for sale by Macquarie Agriculture
Australia’s second-biggest farmland investor could realise $600 million from listing one of the nation’s biggest grain farm businesses for sale.
ONE of Australia’s biggest grain farm businesses has hit the market with price expectations of more than half a billion dollars.
Macquarie Agriculture — the nation’s second-biggest farmland investor — has listed for sale its Lawson Grains portfolio comprising 105,000ha, or more than a quarter of a million acres, of cropping land in NSW and Western Australia.
Lawson Grains is the latest in a long list of high-profile portfolios or farms to hit the market as land prices in many states soar to record levels.
Industry sources say the Lawson Grains portfolio – comprising more than 70 properties purchased since its launch in 2012 – could realise $600 million and is expected to attract widespread domestic and international buyer interest.
The sale is being handled on an expressions of interest basis by LAWD.
Lawson Grains is one of three of Macquarie Group’s three agriculture-specific investment funds, along with Paraway Pastoral and Viridis Ag. Their combined assets are valued at almost $3 billion.
The Weekly Times understands the maturation of the Lawson fund will have no impact on the continued operation of Paraway and Viridis. Paraway was launched in 2006 and now operates more than 4.48 million hectares across 27 stations. Viridis operates 11 properties, having purchased its first farm in 2018.
Based at Albury in NSW, Lawson Grains comprises 10 aggregations in Western Australia and NSW with about 90,000ha of arable land which last year produced more than 250,000 tonnes of grains and oilseed.
Its NSW holdings include the 10,549ha Uah at Forbes, the 10,052ha Grassmere at Oaklands, the 8270ha Borambil at Rand and the 7490ha Kealandi at Moree, which was Lawson’s first purchase in 2012. The West Australian portfolio includes Hakea at Esperance (12,734ha), Gunnadoo at Jerramungup (11,259ha), Wongan at Wongan Hills (10,770ha), Jerry South at Jerramungup (5983ha), St Leonards at Wongan Hills (5698ha) and Walyoo at Yathroo (5620ha).
According to its website, Lawson’s switched its focus in 2017 from property acquisition to “driving performance across the business” with latest technology, practices, processes and expertise adopted to optimise productivity.
The Lawson offering comes just days after billionaire mining magnate Gina Rinehart listed a $300 million portfolio of seven cattle stations and a feedlot for sale in the Northern Territory and Western Australia. The offering comprises almost 1.9 million hectares of grazing country operated by Ms Rinehart’s Hancock Agriculture and S Kidman and Co, of which she is the majority shareholder.
Other significant holdings on the market include the US-owned Auscott Limited cotton business in NSW, which has an expected price tag of about $600 million. It includes 22,000ha of developed irrigation country and more than 143,000 megalitres of water entitlements, five ginning facilities capable of producing more than one million bales of cotton annually, two warehousing operations and a classing laboratory.
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