Wollemi Farms’ first acquisition was the Mountain Top avocado orchard in Nimbin in northern NSW, purchased in late 2021 for $11 million.
Daniel Hough, portfolio manager for Wollemi Farms, said the Kempen fund was focused on “producing returns across the global farmland space while implementing and enabling the best regenerative farming practices with local operating partners”.
Wollemi Farms is focused on acquiring permanent crop assets and leasing them to third-party operators that share similar objectives regarding sustainable and regenerative farming practices.
The tenant of the Paradise Macadamia Orchard was UAG Farm Services. UAG, headed by executive chairman John Barraclough, operates its macadamia processing plant at nearby Alstonville.
Macadamia trees are native to south-east Queensland. Eddie Jim
“We work closely with the tenants to improve productivity and to optimise the sustainability of the assets,” Mr Hough said.
The Eureka property was offered for sale by the Zadro family’s Saratoga Holdings, the world’s largest macadamia nut producer, with operations in NSW, Queensland and South Africa. Bill Johnston and Ollie Charkos from McGrath brokered the sale.
Earlier this year, the Zadro family put a $70 million slice of it portfolio up for sale, offering their Gemfields aggregation at Emerald in the Queensland Central Highlands west of Rockhampton through LAWD and Ray White Bundaberg.
Australia’s macadamia industry is set to boom in the coming years led by the likes of ASX-listed Rural Funds Group, which is well into a $500 million program to plant 5000 hectares of new orchards.
Last week, Rural Funds upgraded its fiscal 2023 earnings guidance to 11.3¢ per unit from 10.1¢ after striking a deal to lease up to 3000ha of macadamia orchards in Maryborough, Bundaberg and Rockhampton for 40 years to a company managed by the Rohatyn Group, a New York-based asset manager.
The company leasing the orchards is a joint venture between Rohatyn and a global institutional investor.
Macadamias, which are native to Queensland, are a sought-after healthy snack food and a versatile ingredient in many products including milks, yoghurts and beauty treatments.
Gunn Agri manages about $500 million of assets and commitments across three platforms, Wollemi Farms, the Gunn Agri Cattle Fund and the Transforming Farming Platform, a regenerative farming investment fund backed by the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, and Kempen.
In June, the Transforming Farming Platform emerged as the buyer of 6000ha of the former Watermark coal mine site near Gunnedah in north-eastern NSW.
