Ex-Rich Lister and wine boss Doug Rathbone selling Queenscliff Harbour
Former Financial Review Rich Lister Doug Rathbone and his fellow investors have put Queenscliff Harbour on Victoria’s Bellarine Peninsula up for sale, with an asking price of more than $30 million.
Mr Rathbone, who last appeared on the Rich List in 2012, when he was worth $215 million (thanks mainly to his major shareholding in crop protection business Nufarm), owns 50 per cent of Queenscliff Harbour, according to company filings.
Just under 27 per cent of the marina is held by John Barnes, who owns the Queenscliff-to-Sorrento car ferry (which arrives and departs from the harbour), while the remaining shareholding is held by property developer Peter Sidwell.
The trio redeveloped Queenscliff Harbour almost 20 years ago, after joining a consortium that won a $20 million tender in 2004 from the Victorian government.
Mr Rathbone led Nufarm for 14 years until 2015, during which time he turned the agribusiness minnow into a $2 billion global supplier of herbicides, fungicides and insecticides.
He also founded major wine producer Rathbone Wine Group, which owns Victoria’s oldest vineyard Yering Station in the Yarra Valley, as well as the Xanadu winery in WA’s Margaret River wine region. Mr Rathbone is also the chairman of up-for-sale rural imports business Delta Ag.
In 2014, he sold nearly his entire stake in Nufarm to save his family’s wine group, which at the time was saddled with high levels of debt.
His investment in Queenscliff Harbour has been a long-term play for Mr Rathbone and his fellow investors, who are now all in their 70s.
The harbour, which is one of the historic maritime town’s main commercial centres, is expected to appeal to high net worth investors, both locally based and offshore.
Offering a number of income streams from its 253 wet berths, 126 dry stack storage sites and more than 4000 square metres of retail and office tenancies, Queenscliff Harbour brought in $2.24 million of net operating income in the 2022 financial year.
Based on a selling price of $30 million, this would translate into an attractive passing yield of more than 7 per cent.
Acting under instruction from Mark Wizel’s Advise Transact, JLL’s Peter Harper, Josh Rutman and Nick MacFie, along with LAWD’s Danny Thomas and Darcy Tobin, have been appointed to market the harbour via international expressions of interest.
Mr Harper said an incoming purchaser would have the opportunity to capitalise on a strong performing and income generating asset, which offered the potential to be enhanced through further development.
“Trophy marina assets of this nature are rarely offered for sale and are therefore regarded as being tightly held,” he said.
Mr Rutman said the marina had already generating interest from high-profile investors in the Bellarine area as well as from NSW and Singapore.
The offering of Queenscliff Harbour follows Rich Lister Robert Magid putting another trophy maritime asset – retail and hospitality jewel Manly Wharf on Sydney’s northern beaches – on the market at the end of last year with an $80 million asking price.
“There is often talk among the market from buyers wanting assets that are below replacement value, and if that is a driver then someone will be buying Queenscliff Harbour for 50 per cent of what it’s likely replacement value is,” Mr Thomas said.
