PSP Investments-backed Hewitt Cattle Australia purchases Brewarrana near Narrandera
Canada’s PSP Investments — the biggest investor in Australian agriculture — is behind the purchase of yet another blue-ribbon property.
The pension fund for the world-famous Royal Canadian Mounted Police has swooped on another multimillion-dollar Australian farm.
PSP Investments, through its joint-venture partners Hewitt Cattle Australia, has purchased the historic Brewarrana property, on the banks of the Murrumbidgee River near Narrandera in the NSW Riverina.
A selling price for the 3256ha property and generous water entitlements has not been disclosed but The Weekly Times understands it was in the vicinity of the $25 million asking price.
The sale is subject to approval by the Foreign Investment Review Board.
It is the second major farm deal in the Riverina involving PSP and Hewitt Cattle Australia in a matter of months.
Last month, The Weekly Times revealed the partnership had purchased the historic 14,876-hectare Tubbo Station near Darlington Point, west of Narrandera.
Tubbo Station was listed for sale in May by the family of the late billionaire Giles W Pritchard-Gordon, who made his fortune in shipbuilding and farming in the UK, with price expectations of more than $40 million.
PSP — which manages the superannuation funds of Canada’s public service, armed forces as well as the mounted police force — has put together a huge portfolio of land and water assets in recent years valued at more than $4 billion.
Its stamp sits at the bottom of the three biggest deals in Australian agriculture history — the $860 million purchase of Olam Orchards’ almond plantation in northern Victoria in 2019, last year’s $854 million takeover of one of Australia’s biggest landholders in Webster Limited and, in May, the $500 million purchase of NSW-based cotton-farming giant Auscott Limited.
The Hewitt Cattle Australia joint venture operates across 1.15 million hectares of land in Queensland, the Northern Territory and NSW.
Its holdings include the 331,800-hectare Ambalindum Station and the 202,200-hectare Numery at Alice Springs in the Northern Territory, as well as the 127,337-hectare Tandou Station at Menindee in NSW.
Hewitt’s other Riverina assets include the 1696-hectare Warilba property at Narrandera.
Brewarrana has been owned by Brewarrana Holdings Pty Ltd, a family investor from Melbourne, since 1985. It features 16km of Murrumbidgee River frontage and is 77 per cent arable with 554ha of flood irrigation development.
It boasts a 2916-megalitre Murrumbidgee River General Security Water Access Licence, a 174-megalitre Supplementary Water Access Licence, and a 10-megalitre Stock and Domestic Water Access Licence.
The selling agent was Sam Triggs from Inglis Rural Property.
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