![GoFARM founder and managing director, Liam Lenaghan. GoFARM founder and managing director, Liam Lenaghan.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/32XghFRykTWK8psrWNhdBMC/7bd54530-eac1-49c9-b2c6-124b9917b1d3.jpg/r240_191_1927_1325_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Farmland investor, GoFARM, is following up a recent capital raising deal with the Qantas staff superannuation fund by seeking another $300 million from investors for its new Responsible Agriculture Fund.
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The farmland refurbisher has had considerable success investing in irrigated northern Victorian and southern NSW dairy and vineyard country, repurposing farms for broadacre grain and horticulture crops.
It wants to invest another $600m via equity and debt into its next portfolio which will have an eight-year term.
The fund's geographically diversified property agenda, stretching from Tasmania to North Queensland, will target annual net internal rates of return of 12 per cent to 15pc, which GoFARM said was consistent its track record for realised and unrealised returns.
Managing director, Liam Lenaghan, who teamed up with Melbourne's Costa family almost a decade ago to start investing in often distressed family farm assets, has notched up about 100 subsequent deals and now has more than $1.1bn in assets.
GoFARM manages about 88,000 hectares of land and 94,000 megalitres of water.
The new fund, launched last month, has already secured a "water-rich development asset", but is weighing up a transaction pipeline of further acquisitions worth up to $700m.
Mr Lenaghan said feedback showed investors liked agricultural exposure which achieved multiple "best ideas" in one investment - geographical spread across a number of climate zones; water sources; multiple crop types, and flow-on benefits for regional communities.
While farmland had typically achieved 8.5pc compound annual growth in the past 20 years, and water entitlements 6.7pc CAGR over 15 years, he said simply buying into the market was not the path to real agricultural investment success, or delivering positive impacts in local communities.
"That requires a willingness for deliberate asset transformation to drive a step change in productivity and sustainable earnings," he said.
In April the $9 billion Qantas Super fund committed $200m to a GoFARM land redevelopment and farming program, including ripping out Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area vineyards to be planted to irrigated almond and citrus trees and developing broadacre tomato crops for canning.
According to agribusiness property marketer, advisor and LAWD senior director, Danny Thomas, GoFARM's new fund reflected the sort growth drive the farm sector was capable of achieving with the right management approach.
He said the Responsible Agricultural Fund was being launched at a good time to attract investors in quality farming practices and ethically produced food for global markets, taking advantage of specialist expertise to identify assets with great potential for transformation to best use.