Big Farm Tract in Kern County Sold by Mobil : Investor Group Pays More Than $100 Million

Mobil said Thursday that it has sold 23,000 acres of Southern California farmland for more than $100 million in cash and securities in a deal believed to be one of the largest dollar-value sales of agricultural land in state history.

The land, mostly Kern County fields that Mobil acquired when it bought Los Angeles-based Superior Oil two years ago, was sold to Western Fruit Acquisition Inc., a group of agribusiness investors, Mobil said.

The investor group was formed specifically to purchase the land and is believed to include an owner of a Mississippi-based cottonseed company, Delta & Pine Land Co., according to one agricultural banker familiar with the deal, who asked not to be identified. Members of the investor group could not be reached Thursday.

The sale comes as prices of California farmland have been plummeting amid a downturn in the state’s agricultural industry. Prices of wine grape and almond growing land in the San Joaquin Valley, for example, have fallen in some cases to less than half their levels four years ago.

Texaco Unsuccessful

Many bankers say the worst is yet to come as potential farmland buyers wait for prices to drop further. Texaco, for example, has been trying unsuccessfully for several months to sell agricultural land that it picked up when it acquired Los Angeles-based Getty Oil in 1984, according to the banker familiar with the Mobil sale.

The banker said Mobil has been trying to sell the land for some time but has had difficulty because “everybody’s been waiting for farmland prices to hit bottom� and because the parcel “is too big, and who has money like that?�

The price of the Mobil deal “is significant in size and magnitude in today’s market, and historically,� said another agricultural real estate expert for a major insurance company, who also asked not to be identified.

The sale is part of a program to sell all non-petroleum holdings acquired in the Superior purchase, Mobil President and Chairman-elect Allen E. Murray said in a statement. “Every segment of our business is subject to the same test: We will either be among the leaders or we won’t be in that particular business,� Murray said.

Mobil spokesmen could not be reached for comment on whether the land was sold for less than what Mobil valued it on its books.

The banker said the land that was sold mostly has been used for growing grapes, tree fruits and field crops.