Costa Group: long-term growth prospects

During the quarter, we participated in the IPO of one of Australia’s leading horticultural businesses, Costa Group (CGC). Costa is a well-established integrated farming, packaging and marketing business and is the number one supplier in Australia of blueberries, raspberries, mushrooms, tomatoes and citrus (including oranges, lemons, limes and mandarins). Costa also supplies bananas, avocados and table grapes into the Australian retail market, manages a vast logistics operation and has international partnerships in China and Morocco. We like the long-term growth prospects of Costa given favourable industry conditions, barriers to entry, leading market position and its ability to manage agricultural risk, meaning the business also has strong defensive qualities. (VIEW LINK)