Cattle company S Kidman & Co shattered by Treasurer Scott Morrison’s decision to block sale of land to overseas buyers

THE nation’s most famous rural landholder, S. Kidman and Co., has vowed to push on with its sale plans, despite the Federal Government’s rejection of its bid to sell to foreign investors.

Austalia’s biggest meat producers, S Kidman & Co Ltd, loading cattle at the Helen Springs Station, one of the company’s 13 farms

• ON THE MARKET: Australia’s largest landholder S Kidman and Co up for sale
• BUYERS: Rising beef prices push buyer interest in S Kidman & Co

THE nation’s most famous rural landholder, S. Kidman and Co., has vowed to push on with its sale plans, despite the Federal Government’s rejection of its bid to sell to foreign investors.

Treasurer Scott Morrison announced on Thursday that he had blocked the sale on national interest grounds because one of the South Australian company’s stations, Anna Creek, is on the Woomera weapons testing range.

S. Kidman and Co managing director Greg Campbell said on Thursday night it would urgently seek meetings with the Federal Government to examine its options to sell the business, because Mr Morrison had left the door open for reapplications.

Recent reports had suggested Chinese companies Shanghai Pengxin and the Genius Link Group had pushed the bidding price above $350 million for the empire of 17 properties covering 101,411 square kilometres and 156,000 cattle.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull insisted the Chinese were not the only ones interested and the property could still be sold so long as the sale was restructured.

Mr Campbell said the company was still working through its options following the Government’s decision and didn’t have much insight into what Canberra might consider to be successful options for its sale.

Federal Treasurer Scott Morrison

Options being considered included a joint-venture between a foreign buyer and an Australian company, its sale to an Australian buyer at a significantly lower price or breaking up the business. He said the proportion of foreign investment the Government would accept was hard to know, but it would have to be considerably more than the existing 34 per cent foreign ownership in the Kidman business.

Officially founded in 1899 by Sir Sidney Kidman, it is one of the country’s larger beef producers with 156,000 cattle on pastoral leases in SA, Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland.

Mr Campbell said he was very surprised by the Government’s announcement because there were much bigger cattle herds in Australia that are majority foreign-owned, including Consolidated Pastoral Company with twice as many cattle and the Australian Agricultural Company with three times the herd.

“Hopefully there is a road through this and that will be the subject of meetings with the Commonwealth, the potential buyers and the State Government,” he said.

Mr Morrison said he had rejected the sale given the size and significance of the Kidman properties, along with national security issues involving access to the Woomera Prohibited Area, which covers about half of the Anna Creek station.

National Farmers’ Federation chief executive Simon Talbot said the peak farm body had been watching the sale closely, and would be seeking clarity on how the national interest test was applied as well as further detail on Mr Morrison’s decision.

“Agriculture is on the cusp of its boom cycle, but the need for capital investment is a significant roadblock to growth,” he said.