Packhorse Pastoral Company has announced a new capital raise of up to $62 million to fund the acquisition of two properties in the Coonamble and Inverell regions of NSW.
The firm said that both properties were aligned to its strict acquisition criteria with regional average annual rainfall in excess of 487 mm for Coonamble and 690 mm for Inverell along with a high percentage of clay-based soils.
Packhorse chair Tim Samway said that the firm's environmentally focused property play would be appealing to wholesale and institutional investors seeking the security of real assets amid political uncertainty, rising inflation, stock market volatility and the climate change crisis.
“There has never been a more opportune time to offer investors an asset class that produces returns on so many levels, while creating positive environmental impact at scale,” he said.
“ESG is at the top of the agenda, with investors seeking robust opportunities backed with data-driven evidence of landscape improvements and carbon capture.”
Mr Samway said that the firm’s head of ESG and principal scientist Dr Elaine Mitchell, who was appointed in November last year, was working with industry peers and experts to ensure that it could deliver on all these criteria, and added that the firm was proud to be involved in the co-development of technology to speed up this process.
“All properties in Stage 1 of the company’s $300 million acquisition pipeline are expected to be registered in soil carbon sequestration projects, presenting investors with exposure to Australian Carbon Credit Units and the potential return these will generate,” Mr Samway said.
“Early investors will also benefit greatly from the exploding capital growth we are seeing in rural ag-land.”
Additionally, Packhorse announced the off-market acquisition of the 10,029-hectare South-East Queensland property Moolan Downs Aggregation.
Located in the Western Downs region of Queensland, the property has solid infrastructure and 60 existing paddocks that will allow for rotational grazing, according to Packhorse Investments Australia MD Geoff Murrell.
“Our Grass Motel model allows us to prioritise the land and animal impact is a crucial factor. It’s a symbiotic relationship, we utilise the cattle we host to mow, fertilise and produce a seed bed to help embed legumes and other deep-rooted plantings in the earth to increase the microbiome, all the while growing higher yielding protein to help support and secure global food supply,” he said.
“What is really exciting is that our partner Carbon Link, has identified more than 90 per cent of the land as suitable for soil carbon sequestration projects, which could offer a significant potential carbon credit trading income upside for investors.”
The firm said that it was on track to accumulate 2 million hectares of land within 5 to 10 years with a land acquisition target area spanning from Cloncurry in Queensland to the Victorian border.
Jon Bragg
Jon Bragg is a journalist for Momentum Media's Investor Daily, nestegg and ifa. He enjoys writing about a wide variety of financial topics and issues and exploring the many implications they have on all aspects of life.
