May 10, 2012

 

Hassad Food acquires up to 250,000 hectares of Australian lands for agriculture and livestock production

 

 

Hassad Food Company (HFC), a Middle East agrifood firm, has made recent purchases of Jerramungup land, bringing its Australian landholdings to 250,000 hectares.

 

The acquisition was made through Hassad Australia (HA), an Australian subsidiary of Qater state-owned Hassad Food Company (HFC) established in November 2009.

 

HFC is an investment and development firm in the agriculture and livestock sector based in Qatar, a sovereign Arab state in the Middle East and it now oversees an Australian portfolio of sheep and grain enterprises.

 

Amarinya, the 14,672 ha Jerramungup purchase, is the ninth and most recent Australian aggregation to be acquired by HA and along with the rest of the company's Western Australia landholdings (8,483 hectares at Bindi Bindi near Moora and 8,340 hectares at Esperance), also acquired in April 2012, is set to act as a grain production hub for the company.

 

It is believed the Bindi Bindi properties were those of well-known farming families W Barrett-Lennard and K & B Piper.

 

It was confirmed Landmark Harcourts was involved in the Jerramungup land sale but the company's WA manager Glenn McTaggart said he was unable to comment on the purchases.

 

He instead directed questions to Cox Inall Communications, the company tasked with HA's corporate affairs support.

 

A Cox Inall spokesperson confirmed the claims and said HA only settled the Jerramungup deal two weeks ago.

 

The Cox Inall spokesperson also said there were no talks taking place about further possible buy-ups in the Jerramungup region because HA had a finite plan for investment in properties and this was already near completion.

 

Purchasing of land has been in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and West Australia.

 

CEO for Hassad Australia, Tom McKeon said that the company focus is on grain production and livestock, in particular sheep and we wanted to put together relatively large properties in each area to bolt together an aggregation large enough to achieve economies of scale.

 

Hassad Australia is predominately east coast focused with just 27,000 ha in West Australia.

 

McKeon said that there was a deliberate decision making process in terms of which areas the company selected.

 

"The plan is based on both a cost/benefit analysis and the reliability of the area. The risk profile is something we look at closely."