Huge mango farming operation in NT for sale by receivers

The orchards are planted with about 37,000 mango trees producing predominantly Kensington Pride and R2E2 mango varieties.

Included in the offering are significant water licences totalling 2319 megalitres a year, a massive 5065sq m packing and grading shed and about 280sq m of cool rooms.

Pricing has not been disclosed, but industry sources suggested the properties could be worth more than $20 million. Potential buyers include existing mango growers and investors in the horticultural sector.

The listing of the aggregation follows the January appointment of Deloitte’s Sam Marsden and Timothy Heenan as receivers by NAB to both Cheeky Farms and the owner of the farming land, Musumeci Property Investments.

NAB is owed $9.7 million from the owners of the mango properties.

Both Cheeky Farms and Musumeci Property Investments are owned by Kathie and Andrew Musumeci, who are separately facing claims from Westpac that their fruit stall at Sydney’s Flemington Markets falsified invoices to secure moe than $15 million in financing from 2011 to 2020.

The Westpac case is scheduled for hearings starting on May 6.

The Musumecis deny any wrongdoing and have claimed Westpac acted “unreasonably” when it appointed receivers to the fruit stand company Sentox, which operated as Fresh Xpress, in December 2020.

The Australian Financial Review revealed last August that Westpac discovered the alleged fraud when an audit of the invoices revealed inaccurate Australian business numbers for 24 companies, at least five of which did not exist at their listed address.

“The internal investigation revealed … the first defendant failed to keep up-to-date debtor records, in that of the 37 debtors reviewed, 24 had an ABN that differed from that recorded,” the bank’s filings in the Supreme Court of NSW claim.

“The contact details recorded in the plaintiff’s records for 13 debtors were not accurate. Five of the debtors did not exist at the address recorded in the plaintiff’s records, 32 of [the] debtors were not able to be contacted using the contact information recorded in the plaintiff’s records.”

Westpac claimed that Fresh Xpress kept two sets of books. One, handed to it, showed the company making millions of dollars in net profits every year, with trade debtors stretching to up to $21 million a year, while another set of accounts more accurately reflected Sentox’s performance.

In January, this year, PCI Partners liquidator Stephen Michell threatened to refer Ms Musumeci to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission for not complying with his requests for information. Lawyers for Ms Musumeci say she has since complied with the liquidators request.

Also in January, NAB called in the receivers at Cheeky Farms and MPI. Property records show the mango properties were purchased for $7.2 million in October 2016.

Cheeky Farms is being marketed by Duncan McCulloch and Jesse Manuel from Colliers.

The farms come to market amid official forecasts that the value of horticultural production will reach a record $17.8 billion next financial year, with the value of fruit exports rising 12 per cent to $2 billion.

According to the Northern Territory Farmers Association, about 40,000 tonnes of mangoes are produced on NT mango farmland every year.

“Mangoes are the largest horticultural commodity in the NT,” Mr McCulloch said.