Permanent Crops

Bonnefield president and CEO Tom Eisenhauer explains why investors need to commit to ag now, his firm’s reasons for steering clear of an own-and-operate strategy and the impact of covid-19.

PSP head of natural resources Marc Drouin said the pension would look to do more post-farmgate investments in Australia and could work with local funding partners more in future.

The American university’s endowment is selling further assets after offloading almond and cotton farms to Hancock Agricultural Investment Group earlier this year.

The Diversified Agriculture Fund will deploy approximately A$25m across three foundation assets and will move to an open-end structure to continue raising capital.

Capital appreciation remains low following years of growth, but another quarter of strong income returns saw annualized returns hold up well during the beginning of covid-19.

Associate portfolio manager Brent Snow says the fund may look to use its water portfolio to develop assets directly and take on operational risk, but sale-and-leasebacks will continue to be the main avenue for investment.

In his first interview since founding Argyle Capital in August 2019, Morrison discusses his regrets, water’s standout performance and superfunds’ reluctance to invest in ag.

Rural Funds Management will use some of the proceeds of the sale to further its macadamia orchard development strategy.

Schoen says NewAg Partners is eyeing up assets being prematurely disposed of by funds limited by their ‘10-year drop-dead PE’ structure, as it targets IRRs in the 12-15% bracket.

The consumptive water pool is set to be higher in 2020-21 than it was last year, but more rainfall is needed to make a material difference to water prices.