LAWD director Danny Thomas cops Ulupna Island Station sale by arch rival CBRE after Sam Mitchell cattle crash
The sale of LAWD director Danny Thomas’ Ulupna Island Station on the Murray River comes amid speculation of a chill between him and co-investor ROC Partners after he lost $15m in would-be cattle baron Sam Mitchell’s collapse.
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A slice of property entrepreneur Danny Thomas’s riverside cropping empire is listed for sale with his arch rival CBRE and expected to fetch up to $15m. In the clubby world of prestige agricultural real estate, the motivation for selling the Murray jewel remains a mystery.
Mr Thomas, who is a senior director at agricultural real estate agent LAWD and known as a prolific deal-maker, has assembled a vast agricultural landholding near the Victorian town of Ulupna, agglomerating farms in the area to assemble a desirable cropping operation.
And while Mr Thomas will pocket a tidy sum for his riverfront parcel, it follows a rare losing bet: he lost $15m investing with disgraced land manager Sam Mitchell whom he called “a dog”.
Ulupna Island Station has been widely advertised in various industry classifieds.
Splitting off the 731ha on which the station lies marks a major disintegration of the holdings he stitched together, with buyers offered 91ha developed for irrigation, plus a further 504ha of arable cropping and grazing land.
Some industry figures are speculating whether it marks a problem in the relationship between Mr Thomas and his private equity co-investor ROC Partners.
But ROC Partners managing partner Brad Mytton said the 731ha was nothing compared to the 8000 acres commanded by their Ulupna Pastoral Company.
ROC Partners manages almost $9.5bn in assets, funded by cash from superannuation funds and wealthy family offices. The group, set up in 1996, is manned by former Macquarie Asset Management veterans and has offices across Sydney, Melbourne, Hong Kong, and New York.
Mr Mytton said at nearly $20,000 a hectare, the sale proceeds were earmarked for reinvestment in the Ulupna Pastoral Company.
Others said the station may change hands for as little as $8m, and if so, it was curious ROC Partners would seek to cash out part of the Ulupna dream for such a negligible sum. It’s quite likely both Mr Thomas and ROC Partners have pockets deep enough to fund any investment they might want to do themselves, they said.
In October 2023, Mr Thomas paid $13m for an off-the-plan penthouse in the Melbourne luxury Park Quarter apartment project.
Mr Thomas has been building Ulupna Pastoral Company for years, starting with a deal with convicted drug trafficker and West Australian wheat baron Giovanni Basilio “John” Nicoletti. Mr Thomas marketed several properties with ties to Mr Nicoletti in his real estate career.
Mr Nicoletti, sentenced to five and a half years jail in 1997 over cultivating cannabis with the intent to sell, was on release when the two struck some of their earliest deals before moving on to their pastoral operation.
They snapped up more than 30 properties along the Murray’s banks.
Ulupna Island Station, now for sale, was the first property picked up by Mr Thomas when he and his wife Kate Adams, along with friends the Cowan and Sagar families, bought in.
Mr Nicoletti sold his stake in Ulupna Pastoral Company in August 2021, telling The Australian he made the choice to divest his ownership given the Covid-19 pandemic and border closures.
The West Australian’s 50 per cent stake was bought out by ROC Partners. ROC Partners built on this to acquire more equity and eventually Mr Thomas was diluted to just 20 per cent.
The private equity firm also issued 13.5 million redeemable preference shares in the farming operation, being a form of capital raising.
Mr Thomas told The Australian he had “no comment for you” on the listing and questioned who had been “feeding you misinformation”.
“This is all standard business,” he said.
“The (Murray River Land Trust) and Ulupna investors have decided it’s surplus to requirements and it’s to be sold and the proceeds invested in more development in the balance of the portfolio.”
The property is also uniquely close to Mr Thomas. One residence on the station is carved out of the sale, but the main heavily renovated homestead is part of the listing.
Mr Thomas’ agency LAWD has hosted several staff events at the Ulupna property after he defected from competitor CBRE in October 2020, at the time citing plans to focus on his pastoral interests.
Soon after Mr Thomas joined LAWD, which was established in March that year, the firms were embroiled in litigation to halt Mr Thomas’s recruitment. LAWD was established by former CBRE agent Colin Medway, former AgCap chief John McKillip and Melbourne agent Peter Sagar.
At the height of their war, the Victorian Supreme Court heard the rainmaker colluded to help Mr Medway and founding partner Tim McKinnon set up LAWD while he was still employed at CBRE.
They settled out of court in December 2023 on undisclosed terms.
Mr Thomas was hugely successful at LAWD, but the intermingling of his interests with key clients and business practices proved tricky, too.
Mr Thomas and WealthCheck boss Sam Mitchell struck up a close professional relationship that enabled the Bondi businessman to create a billion-dollar empire of cattle stations and agricultural operations.
But Mr Mitchell left a trail of destruction in his wake, The Australian reported, failing to pay staff, creditors, and lenders, while running up more than $11m in unpaid taxes and consigning agricultural assets owned by him and his clients to ruin.
Until that point, Mr Thomas and Mr Mitchell were doing business together, picking up the Limbunya and Maryfield cattle stations through their Mitchell River Cattle Company in 2022.
Both Limbunya and Maryfield were marketed for sale through LAWD and Mr Thomas, with reports from the time failing to note the high profile agent’s place on the $103.4m docket.
Those stations are again listed with LAWD.
The pair subsequently united on the Bellevue Station, owned by American investors, with shared management of the cattle operation.
Mr Thomas pitched deals to farmers without disclosing his relationship with the buyer: Mr Mitchell.
One farmer told The Australian he only discovered Mr Thomas’ personal involvement after doing diligence on the owners of the Mitchell River Cattle Company.
Documents show another company linking Mr Thomas and Mr Mitchell collapsed after failing to pay $1.4m as an upfront deposit for the purchase of three pastoral leases across WA.
Wharton Capital was the seller of Kumarina Station, Mary Mia Station, and Weelaranna Station.
Mr Thomas resigned from that company 22 days before the vendor issued a notice of non-payment.
Mr Mitchell and Mr Thomas also split the purchase of a Beechcraft King Air 260 plane, which liquidators moved to seize as they chased Mr Mitchell’s collapsed cattle operation last year.
Mr Thomas told The Australian his dealings with “Sam Mitchell have, to date, cost me in excess of $15m”.
“I’m seemingly in good company when you look at the long list of groups he fleeced including ADM, Folium, Acre Trader, Aqua Ceres, all of his staff, contractors, the ATO and possibly the Harvard University. He’s a dog,” he said.
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Originally published as LAWD director Danny Thomas cops Ulupna Island Station sale by arch rival CBRE after Sam Mitchell cattle crash
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