The Iberian agri-food sector is showing signs of recovery in 2025, despite geopolitical instability and trade barriers. Investor interest continues and transactions postponed in 2024 should materialise. CBRE's "Agribusiness Iberian Report" reveals a volume of institutional investment of more than 400 million euros by May 2025 - half of the entire amount transacted in 2024 in the Iberian market.
One of the major operations that marked the start of the year was the sale of the Agrihold Group's assets, in a 700-hectare transaction in the Alentejo (Herdade da Zambujeira), advised by CBRE. Despite the slowdown in investment in 2023, caused by the misalignment in prices and regulatory complexities, the total volume of institutional investment in the Iberian Peninsula between 2022 and 2024 exceeded 4.1 billion euros.
"In recent years, institutional investment has been driven by the prospect of solid long-term returns and the opportunity to build diversified portfolios. The expected completion of operations postponed last year, together with the adjustment of price expectations between buyers and sellers, and an increasingly specialised and professionalised sector, will continue to boost the market, which has more and more players involved," explains Manuel Albuquerque, head of CBRE's Agribusiness department in Southern Europe (Spain, Portugal and Italy).
CBRE has analysed the profile of investors in the Iberian agribusiness sector between 2022 and 2024, mapping more than 500 players and the volume transacted during this period. Institutional capital already accounts for around half of the investment made in the region, comprising three main profiles: funds specialising in Agribusiness, which account for 25% of the capital; generalist funds, which account for 14%; and family offices, which account for 10%. For their part, industrial producers, who account for 51 per cent of the capital invested in the Iberian sector in recent years, do not act from a financial investment perspective, but from an operational one.
This dynamism of the sector is also reflected in the diversity of the operations carried out: more than 40 per cent of the transactions between 2022 and 2024 were for less than 10 million euros, around 40 per cent were between 10 and 50 million euros, while investments of more than 50 million represented approximately 20 per cent of the total. Transactions over 100 million euros accounted for a smaller share, showing a segmented market with opportunities for various investor profiles.
"In 2024, the Iberian Peninsula took first place in Europe in terms of the value of agricultural production, which reinforces its position as the most institutionalised and attractive investment market at a geostrategic level. The growing professionalisation of the sector is paving the way for a greater diversity of investors - from industrial producers with their own operations, to real estate investors who buy to rent, to financial funds such as private equity or international pension funds, with tickets that can exceed 100 million euros. These investors are looking not only for profitability, but also for a positive impact on natural capital," explains Manuel Albuquerque.
At the same time, the challenges of generational succession, the need for efficiency and the consequences of climate change are transforming the sector, with asset rotation, crop changes and an increase in the size of farms. In this context, "local producers become strategic for supplying Europe and exploring new emerging markets. Even so, we can't ignore risk factors such as bureaucracy in agricultural processes or the commercial and logistical limitations imposed by customs measures in a deeply globalised sector," he adds.
Globally, CBRE has seen a significant increase in funds raised in the agribusiness sector since 2000, accumulating more than 200 billion euros by 2024.