One of the world’s largest forestry investors is believed to have paid $20 million for the 1,857-hectare Mt Hannibal and Kerrawarra aggregation in the NSW Southern Tablelands, a holding marketed to natural capital buyers on its carbon and forestry suitability. That is according to a weekly property wrap published on Friday, which named Sydney-based New Forests as the buyer of one of the region’s largest contiguous grazing assets.
“The property’s quality soils and reliable rainfall are suited to natural capital projects,” Sam Triggs, chief executive of selling agency Inglis Rural Property, said during the campaign, listing carbon and forestry among those projects alongside a high Net Plantable Area. Triggs was unable to confirm the purchaser or the price paid when the sale was reported.
Assembled from three adjoining holdings, the 576-hectare Kerrawarra, 420-hectare Mt Hannibal and 862-hectare Tarlo Hill, the aggregation sits 26km north of Marulan, 45km from Goulburn and two hours from Sydney. Listed in April 2025 with a $20 million price guide, the breeding and finishing platform carries an estimated 15,000 dry sheep equivalents and was running 600 cows and calves alongside 1,000 ewes at sale.
More than 75 per cent of the country is cleared, over well-drained granite and basalt soils, with 25 to 30 per cent arable and half the landscape gently undulating. Water security comprises 35 dams, 2.5km of Tarlo River frontage, and 10km of double frontage to Junction Creek, in a district receiving 713mm of annual rainfall.
Forestry was one of several uses canvassed for the land, with Triggs telling the campaign the aggregation offered upside across multiple land-use scenarios spanning agriculture, eco-tourism, carbon and land banking, and zoning that allows immediate subdivision into three to four holdings. Whether trees follow the title transfer is a question the buyer has not answered.
Managing $10.2 billion across 4.6 million hectares of timber plantations, farmland, carbon and biodiversity projects, New Forests is owned by Japan’s Mitsui & Co and Nomura Holdings. The Southern Tablelands deal follows a $1.06 billion raise for its first global forestry fund and the acquisition of the first Washington State forest from JPMorgan’s Campbell Global last month.
Farmland is familiar territory for the manager, whose $600 million Australia New Zealand Landscapes and Forestry Fund acquired half of the McPhee family’s beef farms near Walcha in 2025, running Angus breeding alongside registered carbon projects. For Triggs, the campaign result shows where Southern Tablelands values have moved, with a 15,000 DSE breeding platform drawing a natural capital buyer as readily as the 600 cows and 1,000 ewes it carried to market.
