Bell family, Ray Dalio begin farms sell-down with $200m deal
The Bell family – founders of stockbroker Bell Potter – and Ray Dalio, their co-investor US hedge fund billionaire, have sold a large farming aggregation in north-western NSW to prominent local player Malcolm’s Harris’s Cleveland Agriculture for around $200 million.
The sale of 45,000-hectares of cropping and grazing land around Coonamble begins the sell-down of one of the country’s largest privately held portfolios, following the death of stockbroking legend Colin Bell three years ago.
The Coonamble farms – Netherway and Wingadee – along with properties at Denilquin and Hay comprise Australian Food & Agriculture whose portfolio holds around 225,000 hectares of farmland and valuable water rights.
A much bigger deal was struck last year to sell the entire portfolio for $780 million to NASDAQ-listed Agriculture & Natural Solutions Acquisition Corporation, but it fell over in April this year.
Had that larger transaction gone ahead, it was expected the AFA properties would have been included into a new company that was to list on the New York Stock Exchange or another exchange.
Colin Bell established the Australian Food & Agriculture Company more than three decades ago with his brothers Andrew and Lewis Bell. Family friend and former Bell Financial chairman Alastair Provan chairs AFA and holds a significant stake as does Ray Dalio.
The famed US investor – whose views on global financial markets are closely heeded by investors around the world – bought into the operation more than 30 years ago after being introduced to the late Colin Bell, through a friend in London.
“I bought some Australian wool options from him. He came to my house in New York and we got acquainted, and we were great pals ever since. We bought a number of agricultural properties and we still have them,” Dalio told The Australian Financial Review in 2022 after Bell’s death.
“Colin was my best friend. So very sad to lose him.”
The AFA portfolio and its 13 properties was put on the market in late 2023 as the family began its estate planning. Bell Potter itself is overseeing the sell-down, with six properties at Denilquin and five around Hay still up for grabs.
The AFA’s latest financial returns show the agricultural company is in rude health after posting a turnaround profit of $12.2 million on $141.0 revenue in 2024. A year earlier it recorded a $15.8 million loss on $99.7 million revenue.
Underpinning AFA’s bumper year was a 30 per cent lift in sale of its livestock – its Merino sheep and beef cattle – to more than $87 million. Sale of its produce – cotton, rice, wheat, barley, canola and other crops – more than doubled to nearly $48 million.
Acquiring the two Coonamble properties is another of the country’s major private landholders, Malcolm Harris and his family’s Cleveland Agriculture, according to market sources familiar with the deal.
Based in Mungindi on the border of NSW and Queensland, Cleveland operates grazing and cropping operations across millions of hectares on a number of properties.
Its portfolio includes the 457,000-hectare Brunchilly Station north of Tennant Creek purchased from mining magnate Gina Rinehart’s S. Kidman & Co for around $100 million two years ago.
