A business agreement was entered into in March last year for the planned acquisition of a group of Australian pastoral holdings, previously controlled by the late Colin Bell of Australian Food and Agriculture Company Limited (AFA).
It includes the famed FS Falkiner properties Wanganella and Boonoke.
Agriculture & Natural Solutions Acquisition Corporation (ANSC) - a NASDAQ-listed and Caymen Islands exempted company - filed its plans with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission the following August.
In an update this month, ANSC and AFA said “mutually determined to terminate the Business Combination Agreement due to increasingly volatile equity market conditions”.
The company is still obligated to pay certain expenses incurred by the parties in connection with the Business Combination Agreement and related transactions, and confidentially agreements remain in place.
The historic sale of the AFA properties was launched in September 2023 last year, which the company said was triggered by the earlier death of Bell Financial Group and AFA founder and major shareholder Colin Bell.
The deal included stations covering 225,000 hectares in the Deniliquin, Hay, and Coonamble districts.
Deniliquin aggregation properties included in the sale are Boonoke, Wanganella, Peppinella, Barratta, Zara and Warriston.
The Hay aggregation includes Burrabogie, Mulberrygong, Kolora, North Cobran and Wahwoon, and the Coonamble properties are Wingadee and Netherway.
It also includes more than 55,000 megalitres of water entitlements, providing security and risk mitigation in drier years.
Bell Potter associate director corporate finance Henry Thomas confirmed with the Pastoral Times it would seek another buyer.
He confirmed the company would revisit previously interested parties as part of their plans to go back to the market.
The timing of this step is yet to be confirmed.
Mr Thomas said while the preference it to sell the properties together, individual sales would also be considered.
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