Gina Rinehart to push technology revolution for S. Kidman & Co cattle empire

NEW S. Kidman & Co principal owner Gina Rinehart will spearhead a technological revolution at the renowned pastoral company in the wake of a historic first board meeting.

Gina Rinehart will reveal new technological spending across the S. Kidman & Co cattle empire.

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NEW S. Kidman & Co principal owner Gina Rinehart will spearhead a technological revolution at the renowned pastoral company in the wake of a historic first board meeting.

Australia’s richest woman, will today reveal new investment across the Kidman cattle station network, including digital UHF radios and remote weighing stations.

The moves were decided at the first board meeting of Kidman’s new owners, Mrs Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting Group and Chinese firm Shanghai CRED, in Melbourne last Wednesday night.

Mining magnate and Hancock Chairman Gina Rinehart at the Kidman Pastoral property.

In the weeks leading up to the meeting, Mrs Rinehart and several Hancock station managers toured the Kidman stations.

Despite running herds well below their usual average, the Kidman stations have about 150,000 cattle on stations covering 80,000sq km across three states and the Northern Territory.

They were bought from Kidman family ownership in December last year, and Hancock Prospecting now holds a 67 per cent stake and Shanghai CRED the remainder.

In a statement to be released today, Mrs Rinehart and Shanghai CRED principal Gui Guojie say their investment is aimed at transforming and improving the stations and benefiting staff and cattle.

“This increased investment in technology approach will involve more training and some cultural change at Kidman, as the company gears to become one of the best cattle companies in Australia,” the statement says.

“Mrs Rinehart was delighted that this was met with great enthusiasm from many of the Kidman station managers.”

The digital UHF radio network, already used in Hancock stations, will be tested and rolled out across the Kidman empire with the aim of boosting communications.

Likewise, walkover weighing stations will be tested and installed. In arid areas, these will be placed near fenced water points, requiring cattle to walk over scales before entering and enabling their weights to remotely recorded.

The first board meeting under new ownership was marked with gifts. Mr Gui accepted a Sidney Kidman branding iron and Mrs Rinehart a pictorial history of her Victorian-born grandfather James Nicholas, a friend and business partner of the renowned Sir Sidney.

Their Australian Outback Beef consortium last December paid $386.5 million for the Kidman empire, vowing to keep the Adelaide head office and create up to another 100 jobs in regional communities across Australia in the next few years.

AOB’s original bid of $365 million was bettered in late October by an all-Australian offer but Mrs Rinehart — the nation’s wealthiest woman with a fortune of more than $6 billion — came in over the top soon after to seal the deal.

Treasurer Scott Morrison signed off on the sale in early December after previously rejecting offers from majority-owned Chinese consortiums on the grounds they were “contrary to the national interest”.

Mrs Rinehart has emphasised the new ownership deal reduces the amount of foreign ownership of the Kidman group from 34 per cent to 33 per cent.