US investor Dean Phillips is set to quit his Border Rivers’ integrated cotton business with plans to sell the Koramba cotton farm and gin assets.
Dean Phillips and his various companies, bought the farming country 80km west of Goondiwindi on the NSW side of the Macintyre River in 1985. At that the land was used for grazing and was converted into a large irrigation and cropping farm.
In 1992 they took the bold step of establishing a vertically integrated business with the construction of a four-stand cotton gin in nearby Boomi.
Koramba is considered one of Australia’s largest integrated irrigation and dryland cropping enterprises.
The farm comprises of four adjoining properties totaling 14,166 hectares (35,006 acres) of land with 5400ha of flood irrigation and 971ha of dryland cropping country. There is also 7795ha of grazing, irrigation storage and service land. The water licences total 31,105 megalitres.
The Koramba cotton gin has a processing capacity of 140,000 bales a season.
BDO executive director corporate finance Margaux Beauchamp said the sale of Koramba was significant for the industry as its owners were key pioneers of cotton industry and had started irrigation farming in that region.
“Koramba’s owners are among the Americans credited with the establishment of Australia’s modern cotton industry,” Ms Beauchamp said.
“Without American knowledge, expertise and capital Australia probably wouldn’t have experienced the rapid development of the cotton industry like it has.
‘The American legacy has also established a very positive can-do industry culture that has resulted in the Australian cotton industry achieving productivity gains in excess of 6 per cent per annum.”
