Shenhua Coal Mine Site Sale Completed to Local Buyers and the Transforming Farming Platform

Sydney – June 7, 2022 –The final transaction in the sale of Liverpool Plains land once owned by Shenhua Watermark Coal Pty Ltd has settled, with the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and global agricultural impact fund Kempen SDG Farmland Fund joining local owners in dividing up the circa 17,160ha site.

CBRE Agribusiness Managing Director David Goodfellow and Associate Director James Auty commenced the sale process on behalf of Shenhua in late July of 2021.

CBRE confirmed 1,208has of farming land at Tambar Springs and 1,114ha of land at Barraba were sold to the local Hockings, Cameron, Bomford and Oxford families.

Close to 6,000 hectares of the largest aggregation of land near Breeza, which comprised 14,835ha of land in total with 1,823 megalitres of irrigation water entitlements, was acquired by the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and the Kempden SDG Farmland Fund for their Transforming Farming Platform, managed by Gunn Agri Partners.

The Platform invests in regenerating mixed farms and developing natural capital assets across eastern and western areas of Australia.

“There were five corporate investors with genuine interest to purchase all of the Breeza parcel,” Mr Goodfellow said.

“They each sincerely appreciated how difficult it can be to build such large aggregations, had the capacity to purchase all of the land and clearly each wanted the whole of the Breeza aggregation for themselves.

“However, one of those corporations ultimately decided to accept purchasing just some of the land at Breeza, primarily to allow the balance of the land to be split up and sold in smaller parcels to local families.

“Shenhua agreed that it would be best for the local community to be able to at least purchase some of the land that they had fought tirelessly to preserve, as long as they paid the market price, which they did.

“Shenhua, CBRE and the local community are all very grateful for the compassion shown by Gunn Agri to accept not taking the whole of the Breeza aggregation on the basis that other families wanted to acquire some of the land.”

The remainder of the Breeza parcel, totalling close to 9,000ha, was split between the Warmoll family, who operate Jacks Creek Wagyu Beef, and the Pursehouse, Tudgey, Norman, Gibson, McDonald, Allison and Clift families – all locals looking to expand their existing operations.

“It was a somewhat challenging process with the COVID pandemic limiting some parties from participating in the sale process and us ultimately having to delay the closing of the sale process to accommodate passionate people who needed more time to be able to travel, but we ultimately conducted property inspections with 49 interested parties of which 45 submitted formal offers for the land,” CBRE’s Mr Auty said.

“Something we will never forget is how many families arrived for an inspection with mum, dad and all the kids, because the kids now want to be farmers and the family needed more land.”

Mr Auty noted that family farming businesses were enjoying comparatively low interest rates, good seasons and strong commodity price forecasts, which was underpinning expansion plans, particularly with a new generation of enthusiastic young farmers coming through the industry with positive aspirations.

The Shenhua landholding initially comprised over 24,130 hectares of land. As part of the deal between Shenhua and the NSW Government to retract the coal license, the government acquired approximately 6,975 hectares of land to be retained for native revegetation, for wildlife preservation and for indigenous cultural respect.

The time taken to ultimately settle on the last of the transactions was delayed extensively due to the requirements to firstly have surveyed and then registered all of the new land titles that needed to be created to separate the land being retained by the NSW government from the land to be operated by Transforming Farming Platform and the 12 new family owners.

“That title registration process has now been completed, so all transactions have settled. We are pleased with the result, and so is the local community and so is Gunn Agri. It’s been a great outcome,” Mr Goodfellow said.