Macquarie consolidates agribusiness operations

Macquarie has rolled all of its agribusiness operations, including its managed investment schemes (MISs), into a single division.

Macquarie Agricultural Funds Management has brought the MIS, dairy farms, forestry and pastoral investments under the one roof, Macquarie Funds Group executive director specialist investments Anthony Abraham said.

“The division now employs 150 staff and manages about 3 million hectares of land in Australia,” he said.

“Macquarie sees the opportunity now of stepping up our presence in agriculture with this move.”

Abraham said merging the various operations also brings scale to its agriculture business and a greater product mix, and sees the skills base of the staff available for all operations.

“We are building on our expertise in agriculture which stems back to 1989,” he said.

“Macquarie started in providing risk management for agricultural operators and that has now become a global business.”

The fund manager is looking to expand its investment base beyond Australia and Abraham confirmed the fund manager was looking at opportunities in Europe and the Middle East.

“We are looking at expanding our operations in other jurisdictions other than Australia,” he said.

“We are also looking at these jurisdictions for raising capital.”

Abraham said MISs will continue to be offered by the new division.

“This is our heritage business and we have a pipeline of projects for future offerings,” he said.

“We have also been testing our earlier offerings to see if they will meet the prospectus forecast and the results have been positive with some investments — almonds — predicted to exceed forecasts.”

Abraham expects with a drop in the number of MIS projects this year, there will be a flight to quality as investors become nervous about the future of some managers in the sector.

“We will not be reducing our offerings in the future as Macquarie is very confident in the future of agricultural investments,” he said.