Bloomberg | 13 March 2013

By Whitney McFerron

U.K. farm management company Velcourt Group said it’s planning to invest in farmland in Romania in a joint venture with Mintridge International.

The investment, managed through a Bucharest-based company called Velcourt SRL, involves “multiple projects” valued at 14 million euros ($18.26 million) to 20 million euros each, Velcourt said today in an e-mailed statement. Romanian land prices are among the lowest in Europe, even after year-on-year increases of 20 percent since 2007, according to the statement.

“We believe Romania offers a compelling case for the three central factors that make land an attractive asset-class: scope for land value growth, the ability to acquire freehold land, and the soil quality for farming the land,” James Townshend, chief executive officer of Ledbury, England-based Velcourt Group, said in the statement.

To contact the reporter on this story: Whitney McFerron in London at [email protected].

To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Deane at [email protected]