Canada Pension to Buy 115000 Acres of Saskatchewan Farmland

 

13 12월, 03:32www.bloomberg.com

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 Canada Pension to Buy 115,000 Acres of Saskatchewan Farmland

 

 By Katia Dmitrieva

 

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 Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, the country’s largest pension fund, will buy 115,000 acres (46,539 hectares) of farmland in Saskatchewan as it seeks assets to meet long-term liabilities.

 

 The pension fund will pay as much as C$128 million ($120 million) for the farmland portfolio of Assiniboia Farmland LP, according to a statement today from Regina-based Assiniboia, the country’s biggest farmland investment fund. The farms grow primarily barley, canola and wheat, Toronto-based Canada Pension said in a separate statement.

 

 “It’s in our backyard and we feel that we understand the market very well,” Andre Bourbonnais, senior vice president of private investments at Canada Pension, said in a phone interview. “It’s an asset we can hold for a long time that plays to our scale. You look at the macro trends in agricultural and they’re fairly compelling in the long term.”

 

 Agricultural land in Canada has gained 110 percent in the last decade to C$1,926 per acre, almost double the pace of the 68 percent gain from 1992 to 2002, according to Statistics Canada , the nation’s data-gathering organization.

 

 Canada Pension, which has C$192.8 billion under management, began to invest in agriculture last year, focusing on countries including Canada, the U.S. and Brazil , according to the statement. The fund is targeting an agricultural portfolio of C$2 billion to C$3 billion, with the possibility of future expansion, Bourbonnais said.

 

 The Assiniboia deal is scheduled to be completed in January, according to the statement.

 

 To contact the reporter on this story: Katia Dmitrieva in Toronto at edmitrieva1@bloomberg.net

 

 To contact the editor responsible for this story: David Scanlan at dscanlan@bloomberg.net