Monette Farms Land Sale Extended to Dec. 4, No Reason Given

The court-supervised sale of Monette Farms, one of North America’s largest farm operations, now runs to Dec. 4 after another extension, and no reason for the delay appears in the public record.

“Oh, this is the saga that keeps on going,” says Shaun Haney of RealAgriculture, speaking on AgriTalk. “In my speech across the U.S., we get to the Q&A portion. And any questions? And everybody brings up [Monette Farms].”

As confirmed by the Sale and Investment Solicitation Process website, the binding bid deadline moved from Oct. 15 to Nov. 3, and the end of the sale process moved from Nov. 30 to Dec. 4 at noon Mountain time.

“They’ve extended it. And there wasn’t necessarily a reason that was given,” Haney says.

Buyers may need time to line up financing

The likeliest explanation is secondhand and unconfirmed in court filings.

“Kelvin Hepner from our realagriculture.com team, when we posted this story yesterday, he mentioned that one of the things that he was hearing was giving more time for potential buyers to g

et financing organized,” Haney says. “We do know that financing approvals are taking longer in this current farm environment.”

As of Oct. 30, the monitor’s website listed no documents filed after Aug. 19, so no order or report explaining the change was posted. Creditor protection under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act runs to Nov. 13, earlier than the new Dec. 4 end date. No stay extension has been reported.

A $900 million debt and 274,000 acres

“Sworn filings show the group operated across 274,000 owned acres and 218,000 leased acres across Western Canada and the U.S.,” Haney says.

The debt of the business is more than $900 million, and the 19 property listings are valued at approximately 1.05 billion Canadian.

Monette Farms did plant and harvest crops on much of the land this year.

What Hammond’s listings show

The land is not being sold in small pieces.

Hammond Realty has 19 Monette Farms listings: 18 blocks of land totaling about 132,200 acres, plus a seed-processing facility at Swift Current.

“One of the issues here too is that this is being sold in rather large blocks. So this isn’t like, hey, I can pick away a quarter here or a quarter there,” Haney says.

Asking prices add up to about $774 million for the land and about $784 million with the facility, an average of about $5,850 an acre. Hammond’s prices are assumed to be Canadian dollars.

The asking prices are concentrated. Three blocks near Regina (North East, West of Gray and South West) cover about 32,400 acres and $265 million, roughly a third of the total. The largest single ask is $130.5 million for 16,067 acres at Regina North East.

The weakest land is clustered near Calderbank. Five listings there cover about 17,450 acres at roughly $2,350 an acre, with soil ratings of 31 to 44, the lowest in the inventory.

Even if every block sold at its asking price, the Saskatchewan listings would total less than the more than $900 million in debt Haney cites.

“And the thing to watch as well is, are they able to get more than the book value for this land?” Haney says.

Monette Farms listings by asking price

All 19 Hammond Realty listings, highest asking price first. Prices are assumed Canadian dollars. Soil = Hammond’s final soil rating. AV/qtr = average assessed value per quarter section.