Lucerne Capital Management has appointed Frank Austin as Portfolio Manager, with responsibility for leading the firm’s US farmland investment strategy. Austin has more than a decade of experience in institutional farmland investing.

The strategy is organised within Bramble Run, a dedicated investment pod established within the firm's real assets platform. Bramble Run serves as the General Partner to the strategy’s investment vehicles, including the firm's inaugural farmland fund Rubicon I, LP. The pod is intended to provide focused investment oversight and operational expertise within Lucerne’s broader institutional framework for governance, risk management, and reporting.

Most recently, Austin served as Partner and Investment Director at Clear Frontier, where he was involved in the development and management of an irrigated organic farmland portfolio. Earlier in his career, he was a Portfolio Manager at Arbor Nutrio and began his career at Rothschild & Co, working in asset management and merchant banking.

Since announcing the launch of its farmland initiative, Lucerne has engaged in preliminary discussions with a range of counterparties and market participants regarding potential opportunities. These discussions are exploratory in nature and may or may not result in completed transactions.

To support portfolio oversight, Lucerne plans to integrate third-party analytics tools as part of its operating and decision-support framework. These systems are intended to assist in monitoring farm-level data, cost structures, and operational metrics across the portfolio.