Overview
The GFTA team has built two institutionally-backed farmland investment vehicles and closed ~$1 billion of farmland transactions.
Milestones
Members of the GFTA team have been pioneers in the growth of the institutional farmland investment space. Since 2007, we have built two separate farmland investment management companies, AgCoA and Goldcrest Farm Trust REIT I (“GFTR I”), and acquired nearly $1 billion of land.
In September 2019, GFTA closed fundraising on its second Goldcrest farmland investment vehicle, Goldcrest Farm Trust REIT II (“GFTR II”), which it will invest over the next few years.
Prior to the formation of Goldcrest Farm Trust Advisors, members of our management team were key founders of AgCoA, a private US farmland REIT which was a joint venture between Duquesne Capital Management and Goldman Sachs. AgCoA was a startup, and within five years (2008-12) had purchased 100,000 acres in 9 states, making it a top-5 institutional owner of row crop farmland in the United States. AgCoA was sold to CPPIB, Canada’s largest pension fund in 2013, delivering net returns to its investors far in excess of benchmark farmland indices.
Launched in 2015 as US Farm Trust, and since renamed to Goldcrest Farm Trust, GFTR I has invested in ~70,000 acres of high-quality farmland across the United States, including in Idaho, Oregon, Arkansas, Mississippi, Colorado, and Arizona. GFTR I’s portfolio consists of high-quality established farms, “fixer uppers”, and greenfield development projects. Moreover, GFTR I has structured medium to long-term leases with the best operators in each region who, in total, farm over 20 different crops.
In October 2017, CPPIB sold AgCoA to a Cottonwood Ag Management, a subsidiary of Cascade Investment.
GFTR I recently acquired over 25,000 acres of contiguous farmland in SW Arkansas (“Goldcrest Farms”), an area nearly twice the size of the island of Manhattan! GFTA is executing an extensive redevelopment to irrigate and precision level much of this farm, which entails moving over 3 million yards of dirt, cleaning or constructing over 33 miles of canals, and adding over 80 miles of underground pipeline. GFTA will also construct grain storage facilities with 2-3 million bushels of capacity.
Launched in September, 2019, GFTR II has over $300 million of committed capital to invest in high-quality farmland across the United States.
Get In Touch
Goldcrest is interested in investing in both existing farmland and greenfield projects, of any size. If you are interested in selling your farm, please consider reaching out.