Despite a general slowdown in rural property sales activity, the top end of the market in 2011 has again defied the trend and produced a string of headline-making results.
It continues a trend that started about four years ago, as corporate players and fund managers entered the rural market in search of large-scale properties with solid income streams.
Typically, these buyers have looked for properties that are large, well located and geared to specialised one-track production, be it dryland cropping, grazing or irrigation.
Details of these “top end” sales are sketchy, as not all have been made public, and of those that have, most are shrouded in secrecy as to price (and in some cases, the buyer’s identity).
The accompanying list shows the individual sales valued at $5 million and above which were reported in The Land in 2011, but it is far from inclusive.
It does not include, for instance, a number of broadacre farm sales known to have taken place in southern NSW, or various direct sales of northern NSW properties to mining companies.
Of the 16 sales listed (involving nearly double that number of actual farms), at least 10 are known to have been to corporate or institutional buyers, most onshore, but some foreign-based.
The continuing divestment of the Clyde Agriculture portfolio provided the main sales highlights of the year, six properties changing hands in three parcels for more than $100 million.
In the largest single sale, “Pier Pier” at Coonamble and “Oxley” and “Merrimba” at Warren were bought in a package deal in February by Macquarie Bank’s Paraway Pastoral Company.
Believed to be worth more than $70 million including plant and livestock, it followed Paraway’s 2010 purchase of “Mungadal” and “Cooinbil” in the Riverina from Twynam Group.
Just a week earlier, Clyde confirmed the sale of its iconic Wingadee Station and “Netherway” at Coonamble to Bell Group Holdings’ Burrabogie Pastoral Company for an undisclosed sum thought to be in excess of $50m (including stock and plant).
Landmark was the selling agent for both sales.
Clyde’s remaining north-west pastoral holding, “Bundemar Park” at Collie, was sold later in the year to the Qatar Government-backed Hassad Australia as part of an aggregation.
Also included in that sale, negotiated by Bydand Agricultural Management Services for Hassad, was the adjoining “Old Bundemar” of Mike Gordon’s Bydand Pastoral Company, and “Methalibah” owned by Alex Ramsey.
It followed Hassad’s purchases last year of a five-property aggregation including “Canomodine” at Canowindra, and Raby Station at Warren.
The biggest reported Riverina sale last year, in dollar terms, was that of Four Arrows Group’s Tubbo Station at Carrathool, following the collapse of its earlier sale in 2010.
Marketed jointly by Meares and Associates of Sydney and Rawlinson and Brown of Griffith, the highly-developed former sheep station was sold this time in five different parcels of land and water, for a total sum believed to be above $30m.
Among the buyers was the Melbourne-based Sustainable Agriculture Fund (SAF), which took the “Tubbo Irrigation” portion of 5034 hectares, with 5000 megalitres of water entitlement.
It followed SAF’s entry into Riverina irrigated agriculture in 2010 with the purchase of “Huddersfield” at Darlington Point.
Also sold this year was “Belvedere”, Four Arrows’ almond orchard property adjoining “Tubbo”, which was bought post-auction through Elders by Select Harvests for close to $20m.
The sales of “Tubbo” and “Belvedere” complete the liquidation of the six-property Riverina portfolio of Four Arrows, the pastoral company established in the 1980s by former business heavyweight Rodney Price.
Other Riverina sales to make the news were Billabong Station at Eurongilly, sold by Meares and Landmark after being passed in at auction for $8.8m, and “Collendina” at Corowa, sold at auction by Landmark for $7.05m.
Among institutional buyers active this year was the UK-based MH Premium Farms, which outlaid more than $30m in three separate deals involving land and water.
The company made a pre-auction swoop on the Young mixed farming property “Burrangong” and later added two northern NSW irrigation aggregations, “Mourabie” at Walgett and “Gunedra”/”Redcamp” to its extensive portfolio.
“Burrangong” and “Gunedra”/”Redcamp” were marketed by Ray White Rural and “Mourabie” by Moree Real Estate and Kelly’s Property Sales of Walgett.
In the Central West, notable sales included “Millamolong” at Mandurama, sold by Elders in a three-way private deal to neighbours, Grawlin Irrigation at Forbes, sold by Landmark after being listed for sale at $7m, and Bobbara Station at Galong, sold post-auction by Landmark for an undisclosed sum.
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