The group's executive chairman, Christine Campbell, says the planned sale of its 'Twynam South' operation in no way signals Twynam's progressive exit from agriculture.

On the contrary, she said, the Twynam Group, along with the complementary Liag farming operation in Argentina, remained the core of the Kahlbetzer family's business and personal interests.

The company's globe-trotting founder, John D. Kahlbetzer, made his fortune in steel but since the 1970s agriculture had been his preferred sphere of investment, and family focus.

And, far from being negative about agriculture, Ms Campbell, the Sydney-born number-cruncher who has overseen most of Twynam's growth for the past 30 years, said she saw the future as "quite exciting".

Twynam has just unveiled a marketing campaign to sell three of its four remaining Riverina properties – 'Mungadal', 'Cobran' and 'Steam Plains' – in a rare mega-agribusiness offering.

Involving about 96,000 hectares and 61,500 megalitres of water entitlements, the properties are being sold as a package called 'Twynam South', with all the livestock, plant and growing crops.

It will leave Twynam with the 104,000ha 'Gundaline' at Carrathool and the 23,000ha 'Merrowie' at Hillston as its remaining Riverina interests, following earlier sales of 'Merungle' and 'Juanbung'.

The Sydney-based Food and Agribusiness Services Group, headed by Geoff James and Anthony Guinness, will manage the expressions of buyer interest.

The 'Twynam South' package is expected to easily eclipse in value the close-to-$70 million believed to have been paid in 1997 by the Mormon Church's AgReserves for the nearby former F.W. Hughes Riverina property portfolio of G.H. Michell and Sons.

Offers closer to $100 million are expected for the Twynam package, reflecting land price trends and the ever-rising value of water entitlements.