This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
UK-based billionaire hedge fund manager Sir Michael Hintze has netted about $40 million from the sale of grazing and cropping properties in NSW.
The sales of Sylvania and the Marshmead aggregation out of his MH Premium Farms rounded out a big year for Hintze. In the middle of 2021 he spent $100 million buying the South Callandoon mixed farming aggregation near Goondiwindi, on the border of NSW and Queensland.
The large-scale 12,343-hectare grazing and dryland cropping platform Marshmead was sold in two lots to local families for a reported figure between $25 million and $30 million.
Located 10 kilometres south of Walgett in northern New South Wales, the aggregation comprises the 8,587-hectare Marshmead and 3,756-hectare Kimo. They have been managed as a single enterprise with a focus on winter crop production and cattle trading.
Also as part of MH Premium Farms’ portfolio reweighting, NSW producer Brendon Stoney bought the high-rainfall grazing and cropping aggregation Sylvania for $13 million.
Stoney will use the aggregation to expand his holdings in Harden and Tumut.
Sylvania encompasses 3,444 hectares and is currently used to fatten 8,000 sheep and trade 500 head of cattle, with cropping over 500 hectares.
Country runs from basalts to alluvial creek flats, and lighter red open plains.
It no longer fitted the company’s long-term strategy.
Hintze established MH Premium Farms in 2007 and the company has properties across the major eastern seaboard states used to prime lamb, beef, cotton, sugar and wheat production.
Confidence among farmers remained high at the close of 2021, with optimal seasonal conditions, high commodity prices and low interest rates expected to carry on into this year.
Positive seasonal conditions and strong commodity prices pushed annualised total returns for annual crop farmland to 41.88%, with total Australian farmland returns at 15% over the 2021 financial year.
