US-based real estate, investment management and professional services giant, Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL), has expanded its agribusiness platform to include rural property sales in Australia.
The New York Stock Exchange listed firm has its eye on the increasing interest from international institutional capital in the Australian agribusiness sector.
Its latest move increases JLL’s rural specialisation to include both valuations and transactions as well as spreading its geographical reach.
For the second time in 16 months, JLL has lured senior staff from real estate sector rival, CBRE, picking up two senior sales specialists Geoff Warriner and Chris Holgar to run its rural business from Brisbane.
The two have a combined 15 years' experience in transacting rural property in northern Australia.
Managing director of advisory and consulting Services, John Talbot, said Mr Holgar and Mr Warriner were industry leaders in the rural property space, with a particularly strong understanding of beef cattle enterprises in central and northern Queensland, the Northern Territory and the Kimberley in Western Australia.
“Jointly they have transacted in excess of $300 million worth of rural property in the last three years including the Iffley / Deverill / Twenty Mile Portfolio (Central Queensland), Legune Station (Northern Territory) and Wollogorang Station (Queensland/Northern Territory),” he said.
“Their appointment to JLL marks our first foray into the rural transactional space following the establishment of a national rural valuation capability.”
In September 2017 JLL recruited CBRE’s Adelaide-based agribusiness valuation team, led by national agribusiness valuations head, Will Curry.
JLL’s agribusiness unit was founded in Australia less than two years ago with the recruitment of the Colliers rural valuation team in Sydney.
“In a short period of time JLL has established a sizeable presence in rural valuations across south eastern Australia with representatives in NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania, and we have now expanded into rural property sales across northern Australia,” Mr Talbot said.
“We have a team of over 10 rural valuers in Australia, having just recruited leading valuer, Peter Honnef based in Townsville.”
JLL is a Fortune 500 company with operations in 80 countries and a global workforce of 88,000
Mr Talbot said it was well placed to continue its rural expansion as the sector’s needs were changing in response to industry consolidation, greater volumes of global capital becoming attracted to Australian agribusiness.
"Many of these global players are existing clients of JLL and our foray into this new asset class for us reflects our long tradition of actively supporting our clients as they enter new markets and geographies.
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Andrew Marshall
Andrew Marshall is the group agribusiness writer for ACM's state agricultural weeklies and websites. He is a former editor at The Land and has worked in various Rural Press group roles in Canberra, North Richmond (NSW) and Toowoomba (Qld).
Andrew Marshall is the group agribusiness writer for ACM's state agricultural weeklies and websites. He is a former editor at The Land and has worked in various Rural Press group roles in Canberra, North Richmond (NSW) and Toowoomba (Qld).
