Lawson Grains rejigs Riverina holdings with $40m listing
Lawson Grains, controlled by Canadian investment giant AIMCo and New Forests, has put up for grabs for an expansive cropping aggregation in the Riverina region of NSW that could fetch about $40 million.
The Buckingbong Aggregation takes in three separate parcels totalling 4245 hectares of cropping area, with more than 90 per cent of it arable.
Lawson Grains is one of the country’s biggest corporate grain growers with a portfolio assembled over a decade by Macquarie before the operation was taken over three years ago by fund manager New Forests and its Canadian co-investor.
Expanding since that takeover, the operation has more than 123,000 hectares under its control through 11 aggregations in NSW and Western Australia.
The decision to divest Buckingbong comes after Lawson Grains bought another aggregation, Bulgandra, which is also in the Riverina region, near Rand, for about $40 million.
“The purchase of Bulgandra in early 2025 enabled the addition of more than 3000 hectares close to existing grain production, storage and logistics operations at Rand, which has meant a realignment of the portfolio in southern NSW,” said Angus Blair, Lawson Grains’ chief executive.
“Since acquiring the Buckingbong aggregation 10 years ago, we’ve continued to develop the property to drive performance, and it is now presented to the market as a turnkey grain farm at scale.”
Elders Real Estate’s Nick Myer is handling the Buckingbong listing, describing it as “a rare offering of scale in the tightly held Riverina region”. Along with a program of soil improvement, there has been investment in access roads, water supply and grain storage which totals nearly 12,000 tonnes.
After its change of ownership three years ago, Lawson Grains has been steadily buying up properties in NSW. As well as Bulgandra, it has acquired Green Park aggregation, Noorongong farm and Jemalong Station. It also bought Hehir’s Transport and Grain Storage, which has recently been rebranded as Lawson Logistics.
Meanwhile, New Forests has set up a dedicated platform, New Agriculture, to manage its agricultural holdings, with assets under management at about $1.5 billion.
In April this year, it launched its first major capital raising, with a $750 million target.
While its initial high-profile acquisitions of Lawson Grains and the East Kimberley cattle portfolio were backed by separate accounts from AIMCo, New Agriculture is aiming to establish a broader fund, backed by both domestic and offshore institutions, ultra-wealthy individuals and large family office types.
