This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
AAM Investment Group has offloaded its 14,074-hectare Sunshine Farms mixed-farming aggregation in NSW – tipped to net more than $90 million – to the world’s largest farmland investor.
Placed to the market last winter, the Lachlan Valley aggregation is reportedly now in the hands of the US Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America and College Retirement Equities Fund’s Nuveen Natural Capital.
Nuveen already has a $2.3 billion portfolio of Australian assets.
Sunshine Farms comprises irrigated and dryland cropping and grazing land across five non-contiguous holdings. It includes 14,766 megalitres of water entitlements.
Originally acquired by AAM in January of 2020, Sunshine Farms was the first strategic land and development acquisition of the AAM Diversified Agriculture Fund, which undertook an extensive program of capital works to improve the asset.
Nuveen will continue to operate the property with most of the existing staff staying on.
“We have been fortunate to have a great team of people on the ground managing the Sunshine Farms properties. They will be central to the ongoing operations of the assets and have been instrumental in delivering the successful transition of ownership,” said AAM managing director, Garry Edwards.
Sunshine Farms offers significant access to water through the Jemalong Irrigation Scheme and AAM’s irrigation development program over the past four years incorporated over 2,100 hectares of laser-levelled flood irrigation.
“Our core philosophy is to acquire, develop and operate assets across a diversity of supply chains and geographic locations around Australia, and create a sustainable legacy in the regional communities in which we invest,” Edwards said.
“When divesting, we take great pride in passing an asset over in better shape than we acquired it, to a like-minded buyer with an aligned commitment to regional Australia.”
Over the past month in NSW, a Sydney-based investor paid around $20 million for adjoining Southern Tablelands properties, including the historic Gundowringa which has 13 wind turbines, while a high-quality Riverina livestock, dryland, irrigated cropping and fodder enterprise was split up into four parts and sold to locals in deals totalling $30 million.
Australian farmland total annualised returns came in at 11.29% at the end of 2023, with the December quarter seeing a return to positive performance after two consecutive periods of negative results, according to ANREV.
Contributions included income return of 5.15% and capital growth of 5.93%.
