$75m dairy IPO launched, Unlisted listing flagged

Photo / Sarah Ivey

Pastoral Dairy Investments, a company associated with farm management firm MyFarm, plans to raise at least $75 million by selling shares to the public and tapping high-wealth individuals to invest in dairy farms.

PDI will offer 25 million shares plus oversubscriptions at $1 apiece, the company said in a statement. Investors will pay 30 cents up front with the remaining 70 cents payable in tranches. The company said there's no limit on the total that could be sold though the minimum is $25 million.

It will also take in at least $50 million from high net worth individuals and said it may be attractive to charitable investors. The company may initially buy eight or nine farms, most likely in the South Island, directors said on a conference call.

The company will seek an Unlisted listing once the initial capital has been raised. Investors will have the option at their first annual meeting to vote on a full NZX listing.

Directors of PDI are dairy industry stalwart Malcolm Bailey, the chairman,
John McDonald, chairman of Pohutukawa Private Equity, and Alister Body, a Canterbury dairy farmer and director of DairyNZ.

Fees charged by a management company overseeing the investments have been designed to by competitive with share-milking arrangements, they said.

The offer opens later this month and closes on April 20.
PDI will be managed by MyFarm Asset Management LP, led by Andrew Watters and Grant Rowan of MyFarm, along with Craigs Investments Partners chairman Neil Craig and Brian Cloughley, a former director of agribusiness investment banking at Craigs.

The company said its structure is "based on a variation of a proven private equity structure." It will purchase and develop its initial portfolio of dairy farms without term debt borrowings by either the PDI fund or the farms, though it may take on debt to buy more properties.