This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
JLL has beefed up its agribusiness team by appointing Chris Lawlor as director, after a hearty 2021 for the group in the sector.
Lawlor has more than 20 years of experience in the agriculture sector in both Australia and New Zealand, as well as the UK. Having previously worked as an agribusiness speciality at Compass Agribusiness, overseeing portfolio management of dairy farms for overseas super funds.
As director, Lawlor will be tasked with heading up the expansion of JLL’s agribusiness transactions platform, focussing primarily on New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania.
Lawlor will work with JLL executive, Jock Grimshaw, who himself was added to the team just last year amidst a thriving agribusiness landscape, while Lawlor will be reporting to JLL’s agribusiness director, Geoff Warriner.
“Chris’s admirable skill set will become an asset to our team. His leadership, strategy and planning, communication skills and industry knowledge will further assist in shaping our team further in order to deliver exceptional results for our clients,” said Warriner.
Warriner noted the pandemic’s impact on the agribusiness as limited due to a dominant local-to-local market which is far less reliant on travel.
“We anticipate supply to remain limited – it remains certainly a sellers’ market. We also expect to see the recycling of capital. After a few large and notable transactions this year, we expect to see that money will be looking to find a home back in agriculture,” concluded Warriner.
Australian farmers closed out 2021 feeling confident due to optimal seasonal conditions, high commodity prices and low interest rates, though at this time the full impacts of the rainfall and flooding across southern Queensland and northern and central New South Wales was not yet measured.
