Koala fund beats lifestyle buyers to rural block near Brisbane
A specialist biodiversity fund established to acquire farmland suitable for koala habitation has beaten eager lifestyle buyers to a 36ha vacant rural block in Redlands, on the outskirts of Brisbane.
Bailey’s Ridge, at 534-558 West Mount Cotton Road in Mount Cotton – about a 35-minute drive from the Queensland capital – was offered for sale by the Holzapfel family,who had owned it across five generations dating back to the early 1900s.
It sold under the hammer in late June for $4.65 million after the $20 million Koala Farmland Fund saw off competition from a cohort of residential buyers.
Launched last year by alternative asset investment platform iPartners, the fund was established to tap into the growing demand for biodiversity offsets from developers who chop down native koala habitation.
In Queensland, developers who destroy habitats in designated koala areas can pay a fee for the offset, buy land to replace the trees, or outsource the program to a third party to manage the offset.
Targeting total returns of more than 13 per cent, the Koala fund will generate income from selling koala offsets as well as from agricultural production, farmhouse rentals and farmland capital growth.
“[Bailey’s Ridge] is a perfect location for us to rehabilitate with environmental offsets for koala and other flora and fauna,” said the Koala Farmland Fund on its LinkedIn page.
The fund, managed by Country Asset Management, aims to acquire up to five farms with the appropriate ecology and zoning to grow trees as offsets for koalas.
Other prominent players in the sustainable agricultural space include Greening Australia. Tiverton Agriculture, the CEFC-backed Transforming Farming Platform managed by Gunn Agri Partners and Tim Samway’s Packhorse Pastoral.
Bailey’s Ridge selling agent Jez McNamara, from Ray White Rural, said a lot of those who had registered to bid were looking to build their dream homes on the property given its pristine setting and proximity to Brisbane.
The elevated property sits 100 metres above sea level and has views from the ridge to the Brisbane City skyline and beyond to Mt Glorious.
“There’s a strong market here for those seeking a bit of acreage,” Mr McNamara told The Australian Financial Review.
But those buyers will have to look elsewhere after the Koala Farmland Fund outbid them.
Bailey’s Ridge, which was most recently used as a nursery enterprise and to agist around 60 head of grazing cattle, sold with “just a coup of old sheds on it”.
For the Koala Farmland Fund, the picturesque property appealed because it adjoins Venman National Park, one of the largest remaining areas of eucalypt forest in the coastal lowlands near Brisbane. The park and other forest remnants in the region are important habitats for koalas and other wildlife.
Property records show Bailey’s Ridge was offered for sale by Neil Holzapfel and his sister Narelle Lanyon. Their late parents Alyn and Edna were one of the largest growers of strawberries in the Redlands region south of Brisbane.
The Holzapfels have lived in the Redlands since the latter part of the 19th Century. Mt Cotton was settled by Germans in the late 1860s.
