Braemar fund invests in third farm

Demonstrating the attraction of farmland as an investment for those outside the industry, Braemar Securities has recently bought its third farm, a 757-acre arable unit in Lincolnshire, through its Farmland Fund.

The predominantly Grade I warp farm also has some Grade 2 and Grade 3 land and takes the investment fund’s farmland holding to 1300 acres. The firm uses both contract farming agreements and sale and leaseback FBTs on its farms and is looking for more farms, said group chief executive officer Marc Duschenes.

Braemar is now offering sellers the option to take units in the fund as payment for land, deferring higher rate capital gains tax until the units are eventually sold. Units could also be sold progressively, taking advantage of personal CGT allowances year by year, said Mr Duschenes.

A 149-acre livestock farm two miles north of Rhayader, Mid Wales, sold at auction for £810,000 last week. Gilfach-y-Rhiw, St Harmon, was sold in two lots to local farmers by Shrewsbury firmHalls.

A detached three-bedroom farmhouse needing modernisation, traditional stone ranges and more modern purpose-built livestock buildings sold for £430,000 with 36 acres of pasture. A further 113 acres of pastureland, hill grazing and an oak and larch wood, made £380,000.