The Weekly Times | 13 July 2026Canadian giant Manulife lists prized Riverina farm portfolio for more than $200m
Nearly 20,000 hectares of prime NSW farmland, 53,227 megalitres of water rights and a mature almond orchard have hit the market in a $200 million-plus listing.
by James Wagstaff
A Canadian company with significant farmland assets across Australia, North America and Chile has listed a large-scale NSW farming portfolio for sale, with price expectations of more than $200m.
Manulife Investment Management, formerly Hancock Agricultural Investment Group, has listed the 19,496ha Wyadra and Cowl Cowl properties near Hillston in the NSW Riverina, selling agents LAWD announced today.
Manulife purchased the properties from the Boston-based Harvard University endowment fund in 2020 in a deal worth more than $120 million.
According to its website, Manulife manages more than 158,000ha of farmland in the US, Australia, Canada and Chile. It has been active in Australia since 2020, managing significant horticultural and broadacre cropping assets in NSW, Victoria, South Australia, and Queensland.
In last year’s Who Owns Australia’s Farms listing, Manulife was ranked as the 11th largest investor in Australian farmland with assets valued at $1.2 billion.
According to LAWD, the two properties operate as a single enterprise bisected by the Lachlan River. They support large-scale, diversified agricultural production, including mature almonds, soft cereals, pulses and fibre, backed by 53,227 megalitres of high- and general-security water entitlements.
LAWD said 8838 hectares had been developed for channel-fed lateral spray irrigation of cotton, canola, wheat and barley, while a further 1064 hectares had been laser-levelled for flood irrigation, with scope for redevelopment.
Complementing the broadacre operation is a 604-hectare almond orchard at Wyadra, planted between 2016 and 2017. LAWD described the orchard as vigorous and early-maturing, with a weighted average tree age of 9.4 years.
Beyond the irrigated footprint and almond orchard, the aggregation includes extensive dryland cropping, native pastoral grazing and operational support land.
In a statement, LAWD consultant Danny Thomas described Cowl Cowl and Wyadra as “a special listing”, combining the rare attributes of scale, water, infrastructure and production flexibility likely to attract institutional investors.
“This opportunity is as good as it gets, offering irrigated agriculture at scale and infrastructure that’s second to none, with a huge amount of the best-value groundwater in the southern Murray Darling Basin,” Mr Thomas said.
The aggregation boasts 47km of Lachlan River frontage, including 16km of dual frontage, and 53,227 megalitres of water entitlements. These comprise 8482 megalitres of Lower Lachlan Groundwater and 44,745 megalitres of Lachlan Regulated River water, including 1722 megalitres of High Security, 42,853 megalitres of General Security and 170 megalitres of Domestic and Stock water.
Water infrastructure includes storages with a combined capacity of 3950 megalitres.
Cowl Cowl and Wyadra are for sale by expression of Interest closing on August 27, 2026.
