Qatar-based Hassad Food now owns $65 million worth of rural NSW property
As we look to what's ahead for 2012, Property Observer is republishing some of our most noteworthy stories of 2011.
Hassad Food, the agriculture arm of a Qatari sovereign wealth fund, has now spent $65 million on NSW sheep and cattle stud farms.
Its acquisitions total about 26,000 hectares.
The total includes $28 million since June in an investment strategy replicated across the world, with the primary purpose of achieving food security for the Gulf states.
Before the latest acquisitions Qatar's sovereign wealth fund Hassad was ranked as the second-biggest agricultural investor in NSW rural land during the previous 12 months, behind Macquarie's pastoral fund.
In 2010 Hassad Foods spent $36 million buying sheep and cattle properties covering 11,800 hectares, including $9.7 million on the 8,560-hectare merino stud farm Raby Station, near Warren, in late 2010.
Hassad's most recent rumoured purchase was sheep grazing and cropping land in western Victoria for $35 million, which sparked political disquiet about sovereign wealth funds' appetite for rural land and enterprises.
The Senate inquiry into land ownership continues.
Photograph by Lorraine Phelan
