Paraway Pastoral’s $60 million NSW station sold

An Australian pastoral company has sold the second of three properties it listed for sale with a combined $180m price tag last year. See the details.

Macquarie Agriculture’s Paraway Pastoral Company has offloaded the second of three stations it listed for sale last year in a combined $180 million offering.

Paraway Pastoral Company, the manager of a portfolio of pastoral and cropping assets owned by Macquarie Asset Management, has sold its 14,400ha Borambil Station, located along Lachlan Valley Way about 8km southeast of Condobolin in NSW’s Central West.

It is understood the Elias family, a local farming family based near Condobolin, has acquired the property, adding Borambil Station to its existing Central West farming interests.

The value of the transaction remains undisclosed due to confidentiality arrangements. When Borambil Station was listed for sale last May it was expected to field offers in the vicinity of $60 million.

Comprising five properties - East Borambil, Ellerslie, Grassmere, Mooney Park and Borambil Park - Borambil Station was acquired by Paraway Pastoral in 2008 as one of its first assets.

During its tenure the property has primarily been used for Merino sheep and lamb production as well as dryland and irrigated cropping.

Borambil has carried 13,000 Merino ewes, in addition to cattle agistment with a capacity of 40,000 dry sheep equivalents (DSE).

Paraway Pastoral have sold their Borambil Station, which has 10km Lachlan River frontage, while the Wallamundry Creek and the Wallaroi Creek traverse the station.

About 780ha has been developed for flood irrigation, supported by extensive water entitlements totalling 8659ML.

LAWD senior directors Col Medway and Danny Thomas handled the sale but were unable to disclose the buyer or the price paid.

The deal for Borambil Station follows from Paraway Pastoral’s sale of the 5437ha Burmah Aggregation, a broadacre cattle breeding, finishing and cropping property, located 30km northeast of Warialda at Graman in the NSW North West Slopes.

GunnAgri Partners acquired the Burmah Aggregation as part of its $200 million “sustainable agricultural platform” known as Wilga Farming, adding it to the 1237ha The Glen property, forming a 6660ha operation.

Water entitlements offered with Borambil Station included 3550ML of groundwater licences and 5109ML of river water licences.

Wilga Farming is a joint venture between the Australian government’s Clean Energy Finance Corporation and the $400 billion Canadian pension fund, Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec.

Backed by Macquarie Agriculture, Australia’s second-largest landholder by value with $3 billion in assets, Paraway runs 26 pastoral enterprises across Queensland, NSW and Victoria.

Combined the company’s portfolio can run 220,000 cattle and 250,000 sheep alongside dryland and irrigated cropping ventures.

Paraway Pastoral also listed the 23,905ha Pier Pier Station aggregation near Coonamble in the NSW Western Plains for sale last year alongside Borambil and Burmah after “a number of unsolicited offers to purchase in the past 12 months”.

However, Paraway Pastoral has retained Pier Pier Station after withdrawing it from the market.