Weather setback prompts fund manager seeks to buy northern Victorian farms

This is the reason an ASX-listed fund manager has given for buying Piambie Farms near Swan Hill for an all-up price of $9 million.

South Australian-based Duxton Farms will buy one farm and lease a second across a combined 1183 hectares (2923 acres).

Duxton Farms has agreed to buy the Glen Innes (240ha) property for $1.63 million and lease Piambie (944ha - valued at $7.37 million).

It has a purchase option until July 2023 "which is when Duxton expects the transaction to be completed" for Piambie pending final approval by the Foreign Investment Review Board.

Piambie Farms is located along Murray River between Swan Hill and Boundary Bend.

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Duxton Farm's "core farm portfolio" spans eight properties with a combined 22,882ha in the Forbes region of NSW.

The company's chairman Ed Peter told shareholders last month the Forbes winter harvest was heavily impacted by rain and flooding.

Now Duxton Farms says it wants to "de-risk its geographic concentration" with its purchase in northern Victoria.

The Piambie deal includes 8854 megalitres of irrigation water.

The company said it would continue planting irrigated wheat and canola but would then look at including irrigated cotton crops.

The company said in the longer term it may move away from annual crops to permanent horticultural plantings.

The Adelaide Hills-based investment company say it is buying the Victorian aggregation to diversify its portfolio after a severe impact of flooding rains on its winter crops last year.

A LAWD revaluation of the company's properties benefited from the nationwide boom in farmland prices which has "resulted in a very robust balance sheet", according to its annual report.

The deal is being financed by the company under its current debt arrangements.

Based in the Adelaide Hills, Duxton Farms was listed in 2017 and recently changed its name from Duxton Broadacre Farms Ltd.

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