Australian Pastoral puts three properties up for sale

Australian Pastoral Funds Management has put three rural properties on sale for an estimated A$70 million, according to Australian media reports.

Two of the properties are cattle stations: the Deltroit Station in southern New South Wales, bought for about A$15 million ($11.24 million; €10.08 million) in 2011, and the Neumayer Valley property in the north of Queensland. Neumayer Valley, a breeding station, is thought to have been bought for A$30 million in 2013.

The third property, the Kinbeachie aggregation in southern Queensland, grows forage sorghum and grazing oats and has about 3,136 hectares under cultivation and 1,040 hectares of new cropping, alongside some lightly timbered land, according to an agency advert.

Australian Pastoral Funds Management executive chairman Alan Hayes told the Australian Financial Review that intensified transaction activity in Australia’s agricultural sector made it a good time to sell and free up cash.

“These three stations have been successfully operated on a fully integrated basis since acquisition; however, each property is now being offered individually, or the group as a whole, for open competition,” Hayes said.

Agri Investor visited the Neumayer Valley station last year and filmed an interview with Hayes on the property.

Hayes managed the Prudential Colonial Commonwealth Bank Pastoral Fund between 1989 and 2001. He was head of property strategy at Macquarie’s Pastoral Fund and chief executive of its subsidiary Paraway Pastoral between 2006 and 2009, before setting up Australian Pastoral.