MIRA to sell one-fifth of land bought from Hassad in September 2018

Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets’ agricultural subsidiaries Paraway Pastoral Company and Viridis Ag have put a string of properties up for sale that they acquired from Hassad Food Group in September 2018.

The properties are being sold after MIRA reviewed the most efficient sizes for each of Paraway’s and Viridis’ porfolios, a source familiar with the sales told Agri Investor.

Optimal land use has also been considered, the source said, with properties better suited for cropping being sold by the pastureland-focused Paraway and properties better suited for pasture being sold by the cropping-focused Viridis.

Paraway Pastoral Company, the sheep and cattle-grazing enterprise wholly owned by the Macquarie Pastoral Fund and managed by Macquarie Agricultural Funds Management, is selling three properties in New South Wales: the 6,830-hectare Laura Downs aggregation near Coonamble; the 6,077-hectare Bundemar Park aggregation near Trangie; and the 3,366-hectare Paddy’s River aggregation near Gin Gin.

Laura Downs has been carved out of the 25,932-hectare Urawilkie aggregation that Paraway purchased from Hassad last year, while Bundemar Park and Paddy’s River were previously part of Hassad’s Old Bundemar aggregation.

All three of the new aggregations are being sold by CBRE via expressions of interest, closing March 7 for Laura Downs and Bundemar Park and March 14 for Paddy’s River.

Meanwhile, Viridis Ag has placed two properties up for sale: the 4,188-hectare Canowindra aggregation in NSW and the 2,648-hectare Cummins aggregation in South Australia.

The Canowindra aggregation comprises two properties, grazing enterprise Canomodine and the much smaller dryland cropping and grazing enterprise Elonera, both carved out of Hassad’s Gindurra aggregation. The Cummins aggregation was purchased from Hassad in its present configuration.

Canowindra is being sold by CBRE via expression of interest, closing on March 14. Cummins has been listed by Elders Real Estate with the property to be sold at auction on February 22.

Qatar Investment Authority’s Hassad sold its remaining Australian properties to MIRA in September 2018 for an undisclosed sum, taking a stake in MIRA’s ag portfolios in the process. The portfolio purchased by MIRA then covered more than 104,000 hectares in total.

The properties put up for sale this month comprise more than 23,000 hectares, or more than one-fifth of the total land area that MIRA acquired last year.

Market sources indicated to Agri Investor that the properties were all of sufficient scale and quality that they are expected to attract significant interest from corporate farming operators as well as local buyers.

Paraway Pastoral Company will retain the other holdings acquired from Hassad, including the 8,244-hectare Barton Station in Victoria, and the remainders of the Old Bundemar and Urawilkie aggregations in NSW.

Viridis Ag retains the three grain properties in Western Australia that it acquired from Hassad, covering more than 30,000 hectares in total, as well as the 7,448-hectare Englefield Plains property in NSW and the remainder of the Gindurra aggregation.