Gina beefs up Queensland focus

Australia’s richest person Gina Rinehart is taking a bigger slice of the Sunshine State with her huge cattle operation S Kidman & Co moving its head office to Queensland.

AUSTRALIA’S richest person Gina Rinehart is taking a bigger slice of Queensland.

Rinehart’s huge cattle operation S Kidman & Co has confirmed it is moving its head office to Queensland as part of a greater focus on the Sunshine State. The company declined to give details of where or when the office would be relocated, but sources said it was likely to be in Brisbane or on the Darling Downs.

S. Kidman & Co has its headquarters in Adelaide, but the recent sale of two cattle stations in South Australia means all its properties are now in either Queensland or the Northern Territory.

According to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, S. Kidman & Co and its parent company Australian Outback Beef employ more than 150 people with revenue of $66.7m in 2021. Its operations, incorporating backgrounding, feedlotting and product branding, delivered a net profit after tax of $11.5 million and its net assets were listed at $392m.

Earlier this year, S. Kidman moved to sell its Macumba and Innamincka stations in northern South Australia.

Rinehart obviously likes the Sunshine State and in 2017 paid $18.5m for a mansion with extensive grounds at 46 Aaron St, Hawthorne. It’s also been revealed that the mining magnate splashed more than $76m on four homes in ­Sunshine Beach.

Gina Rinehart’s cattle properties are scattered across Queensland and Northern Territory.

One man welcoming Rinehart’s increasing focus on Queensland is Norman Hotel publican James Power.

S. Kidman & Co is holding a promotion at the hotel this month to celebrate the move to Queensland and to showcase the company’s Santa Gertrudis breed. The Norman will highlight a different cut of Santa Gertrudis each week, starting with eye fillet, then rib fillet, striploin and rump.

Founded by Sir Sidney Kidman in 1899, S. Kidman & Co is one of the Australia’s largest beef producers, with a herd carrying capacity of 171,000 cattle. Sir Sidney was a friend and business partner of James Nicholas, Rinehart’s maternal grandfather.

Australian Outback Beef, owned 67 per cent by Hancock Prospecting and 33 per cent by Shanghai CRED Real Estate Stock Co acquired 100 per cent of the shares of S. Kidman & Co in late-2016.

Kidman’s move comes amid speculation that Rinehart, whose business interests span mining, cattle stations and property, is looking at other big investments in Queensland including Port Douglas’s Reef Marina in far north Queensland. Not all her Queensland investment plans have proceeded. In May, she abandoned plans to buy the abandoned Great Keppel Island resort for a rumoured $50m.

It was understood that Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting found the obstacles to making the ­resort an eco­nomically viable business were significant. Sources say Rinehart is in due diligence to buy the Port Douglas marina.

Mrs Gina Rinehart with S. Kidman & Co staff at her first visit to the company's North Adelaide headquarters.

The marina is owned by Crystalbrook Collection, backed by Dubai-based Syrian billionaire Ghassan Aboud.

Aboud bought the property in 2017 for about $40m with plans to develop the site as a superyacht facility with hotel, apartments and shops.

A planned $250m redevelopment of the marina was put on hold in 2020, but sources say his team are still poring over the plans with the ­intention of kickstarting a ­redevelopment program.

Crystalbrook Collection, which is the Australian arm of the GA Group, refused to comment and Hancock Prospecting did not return City Beat inquiries.

NOOSA HOSTS MINERS

The three-day Noosa Mining Investor Conference kicked off on Wednesday with a big line-up of speakers at the resort town’s Peppers Resort discussing everything from lithium and gold to coal and nickel.

Taking the podium will be Bowen Coking Coal’s Nick Jorss, Metallica Minerals Theo Psaros, Diatreme’s Neil McIntyre and Stu Crow from Lake Resources. We hear the Noosa Surf Club is stocking up on plenty of beverages of the alcoholic variety with previous years showing conference participants are a thirsty lot after a hard day of yakking. City Beat spies tell us $15,000 was splurged at the surf club bar in less than an hour during one conference a few years ago.

Now in its 12th year, the conference is considered by many as a must-attend event in the resources sector.

Last year, more than 70 listed companies made presentations or had exhibitions at the conference, with 2500 delegates attending either in-person or online.

GREAT SCOTT

Former Brisbane Grammar old boy and Commonwealth Bank executive Scott Wharton has been tapped at the new boss of Star’s Sydney casino as it awaits the fate of its NSW casino licence. Wharton also has been tasked as group head of transformation, “pending all necessary regulatory approvals.” Star said

Wharton was most recently a member of CBA’s group executive, program delivery, which including leading the bank’s transformation on governance, culture and accountability issues.

Brisbane-born and bred, Wharton attended a state primary school then got a scholarship to Grammar. After Year 12 he migrated to Sydney and went to the University of Sydney. Wharton will report to incoming Star chief executive Robbie Cooke, who is leaving Tyro Payments to lead the embattled gaming group’s turnaround.

Cooke takes over from Matt Bekier who resigned in March, days into the start of a royal commission-style inquiry into the company’s fitness to hold a NSW casino licence.

Scott Wharton taking a top job with Star Entertainment in Sydney

NORTHERN EXPOSURE

Gold Coast-based global logistics software provider CartonCloud is continuing its expansion into Canada with the appointment of a local team to focus on the region’s growing small to medium market.

CartonCloud chief operating officer Shaun Hagen, who is leading the North American expansion from its Vancouver base, says logistics specialists Mitch Whitnack and Robb Sollows have joined the company as implementation specialists.

Hagen says both men are experts in the Canadian warehouse and transport industries. “Their deep understanding of the pain points and existing technical options for North American businesses will help CartonCloud to become a powerhouse in the local logistics software space,” Hagen says.

Sollows, an industry veteran of more than 40 years, says CartonCloud’s focus on building software to simplify complex logistics is exactly what the Canadian market was crying out for.

“The capability of CartonCloud to automate processes far exceeds any other product I’ve seen in my 40 years in the industry,” he says. Whitnack says CartonCloud had significant potential to help Canadian warehouse businesses grow by supporting them to boost their operations.

“Traditionally it’s been a challenge in Canada for businesses to fully adopt complicated software. CartonCloud makes the process easy,” Whitnack says.

Logistics expansion in Canada