Australian Agriculture, Ripe for Growing Global Investment

We recently travelled to Tokyo for the Global Ag Investing Asia conference. It was the third year in a row we have attended the conference and the best yet.

We attend these conferences for two main reasons:

1. To continue to grow and develop our network – in this case internationally; and
2. To gain a better understanding for the macro environment and the key drivers of agriculture investment into the future.

The focus of the 2018 conference was on the global trends affecting agribusiness investment and trade flows and was full of interesting speakers from around the world.

Attendees included; North American pension funds, Japanese super funds and trading houses, the African Development Bank, China-focused private equity firms, local agricultural funds, banks and deal advisors.

FTI Consulting was also invited to speak as part of a panel on Investment Opportunities in Australia and New Zealand alongside Steve Francis from New Harvest Investment Management, Desmond Sheehy of Duxton Asset Management and Griff Williams from Milltrust Agricultural Investments.

So what does the future of agriculture investment look like? We came away from the conference with three clear themes:

1. The quantum of funds allocated to ag investing globally is growing

Driven by growth in the global population and the fast-changing demographic of the world’s largest economy - China, the demand for food is set to rise by 2050.

In addition, while global capital markets, real estate and, more recently, infrastructure have experienced significant growth over the last 10-20 years, the outlook is uncertain. As in previous macro-economic cycles, in periods of uncertainty – more capital is allocated to investments in agriculture.

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Published

January 18, 2019

temp Key Contacts

Ben Waters

Senior Managing Director, Head of Agribusiness, Asia Pacific

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