Aware Super has sold a portfolio of farmland assets in Victoria to Australian agricultural investor GoFarm.
The assets, consisting of broadacre and horticulture cropping land, cover more than 9,000 hectares and are located between Lake Boga and Kerang in northern Victoria. The portfolio includes one of Australia’s largest tomato producers.
The sale price of the portfolio, which has been sold with low-reliability water rights, was not disclosed but is believed to be around A$30m (€21m).
Aware Super has retained ownership of A$100m worth of high-reliability water rights that were previously part of the portfolio.
Aware Super is a big owner of water rights, which it leases out to nut growers in rural Australia. The A$150bn Australian industry superannuation fund owns more than A$1bn of agriculture assets, including timberland and nut farms, which sits within its infrastructure portfolio.
“We’re really proud of what we accomplished with this investment over the 16 years it was owned by VicSuper and then Aware Super, after the funds merged in 2020,” said Mark Hector, Aware Super’s senior portfolio manager for infrastructure.
”It was always our intention to divest the farmland after a period of transformation and growth, and to redeploy the capital into exciting new investment opportunities that will keep delivering the strong, long-term returns our members expect.”
Hector said Aware Super will continue to invest in strong, sustainable agricultural assets that support regional Australia and deliver strong, long-term returns for its members.
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