AAM Investment Group has expanded its portfolio of poultry assets with the acquisition of broiler chicken business Kirchberg Poultry Farm. Financial details were undisclosed.

Capital was deployed from AAM’s flagship Diversified Agriculture Fund and the asset represents the firm’s first poultry investment in Queensland.

Kirchberg Farms has been family owned since 1995. AAM will recruit to fill two senior vacancies left by the former family owners but will retain the existing management and employee staff.

“This acquisition complements the existing poultry pillar within the Diversified Agriculture Fund and will be the first of what we hope to be a meaningful expansion into the poultry industry in Queensland,” said AAM managing director Garry Edwards in a statement.

“Australians are consuming more than 50 kilograms of chicken meat each year per person in our national population, and as such AAM is committing to increasing our poultry investment as an important part of our strategy of providing high-quality food and fibre to Australia’s population,” he added.

AAM said in June it was seeking to raise more capital for the Diversified Agriculture Fund and hoped to take the vehicle beyond A$500 million ($360 million; €337 million) in assets under management for the first time.

The vehicle was established in January 2020 with the aim of raising A$500 million within five years, a goal that looks set to be achieved in half the time.

The closed-end unit trust has an initial seven-year lock-up period with three one-year extensions. Edwards told Agri Investor that the vehicle stood at A$422 million prior to the launch of the June fundraise.

“We’re looking to raise capital to support the acquisition of a further A$120 million in assets. We’re looking at how much investor appetite there is for further capital at the moment, because we’ve got some flexibility to take more,” he said in the summer.

“We really only need A$60 million to settle the assets that we have at the moment, but given investor demand and the performance of the portfolio since inception, we expect that demand might exceed that target.”