Only weeks after Consolidated Pastoral Company (CPC) announced it agreed to sell its historic Carton Hill cattle station to China’s Shanghai Zhongfu (doing business in Australia as Kimberly Agricultural Investments (KAI)), through a $100 million sale and leaseback agreement, CPC announced it is selling three additional cattle stations located in Queensland.
On October 6, (if not sold prior) Australia’s largest privately owned beef producer will auction three stations totaling 115,477 hectares with the additional option of also acquiring cattle through a Ruralco Property auction in Brisbane. The three properties include:
Mount Marlow Station – at 73,100 hectares Mount Marlow is best positioned to be operated at a breeding and growing property, according to the North Queensland Register. The station is certified organic and has the capacity for 4,000 head of mixed cattle. There are both permanent and semi-permanent waterholes on the property, which also has 32 kilometers of frontage on the Barcoo River.
Cooinda Station – With 24,300 hectares and abundant artesian water, Flinders and Mitchell grass, Cooinda has a capacity to run between 3,000 and 4,000 head of cattle.
Gowan Station – The 18,077 hectare Gowan station claims a mixture of buffel grass and lightly shaded Mitchell grass. With ‘lightly shaded pebbly gidyea country and flooded Coolibah creek systems”, the station has the capacity to run between 3,000 and 4,000 head of cattle. All of Gowan’s paddocks are supplied with water by the properties reticulated bore systems.
Commenting on the upcoming sale, Ruralco’s Andrew Adcock, who has been named the marketer of the three properties, stated in a company release, “With recent rain across the region, the three properties are presenting excellently with pasture growth and an opportunity for an incoming owner to benefit from the strong start to the season.”
CPC is a $700 million company that currently encompasses 19 cattle stations totaling more than 5.6 million hectares of land. It also holds an 80 percent stake in PT. Juang Jaya Abdi Alam (PT. JJAA) – a joint venture launched in 2000 with Indonesian partners that owns two feedlots in Indonesia with a combined capacity of 35,500 head. This joint venture could prove to be quite a valuable holding as Australia’s Ministry of Agriculture released 250,000 permits for live cattle exports to Indonesia in May of this year.
This release of permits along with the finalization of the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement (CHAFTA) have created a promising landscape for Australia’s mining magnates to diversify into agriculture as a means to capitalize on Asia’s rapidly growing food market and Australia’s so-called “dining boom.”
As diversification into Australia’s cattle sector continues apace, buyers have been competing for stations. Last month, Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting acquired the Inverway and Riveren stations in the Northern Territory from Indonesia’s Japfa Santori for an undisclosed amount.
In December 2015 Australia’s Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) granted approval for Hewitt Cattle Australia (HCA), which is backed the Canadian Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP Investments), one of Canada’s largest pension funds, to acquire three cattle stations from the gas company, Australia Pacific LNG for an undisclosed amount.
A month earlier in November 2015, Filipino Banker, Romeo Roxas acquired the 560,000 hectare Murray Downs station and the 265,000 hectare Epenarra Station. And in October 2015 billionaire retail mogul, Brett Blundy agreed to acquire two cattle stations in the Northern Territory from Macquarie Group’s Paraway Pastoral in a deal worth $100 million.
Troy Setter, CEO of CPC, expressed that after the sale of the current three stations, there are no additional sales planned by CPC and that the proceeds from the sale will be reinvested into the company.
“We continue to invest in the future growth of CPC. These properties are being marketed with a view to reinvesting the proceeds into the further development of our existing northern stations,” noted Setter.
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Lynda Kiernan