Blue Sky raises funds for grassroots investment
A Queensland-based private equity company has raised $1.5 million for an agribusiness project in six weeks, and now plans to move into funds management.
Blue Sky Private Equity raised the capital from private investors to purchase a 40-hectare macadamia plantation near Bryon Bay in New South Wales.
The minimum investment was $50,000 and Blue Sky director Mark Sowerby said an investment memorandum for sophisticated investors was used rather than a Product Disclosure Statement and it was not a tax-effective managed investment scheme.
“This investment is profit driven rather than a lot of managed investment schemes, which are tax driven,” he said.
“We will be producing some more agribusiness investment schemes, again based on returns rather than tax structure.”
The company is applying for a Financial Services Regulation licence to enable broader investment projects to be offered to a wider audience, Sowerby said.
“We are looking at property development in Queensland and we are putting together a residential project that would be along the coast at places such as Mackay, Bundaberg, Hervey Bay and Rockhampton,” he said.
“These will be small residential projects in these towns and similar to the small unit development we have done in Townsville for a group of investors.”
Sowerby said the rural location for the residential projects slots in with future agribusiness projects, and the company was looking at further macadamia plantations in Queensland.
Blue Sky is expecting investors in the Bryon Bay macadamia project to get returns from three sources.
“Firstly, the capital growth of the land, which is only 15 minutes from Bryon Bay and very close to the new Highway being built from Ballina and Brisbane,” Sowerby said.
“Secondly, we are creating a valuable asset by establishing the farm on the Alstonville plateau, which is Australia’s primary macadamia growing territory.”
He said investors would also generate income from the sale of nuts in the future.
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