Failed Global Air founder Luke Butler moves into cattle breeding, launches Archipelago Beef Trusts

HE’S been wanted by Ghana police, banned by ASIC and bankrupted. Now Luke Butler is back with grand plans to be Australia’s biggest cattle breeder and land holder.

Luke Butler-founder of Global Air Group-which has to pay the Japanese government AUS $ 6 million .Picture-Patrick Hamilton ex BNE 17-7-03

SOUGHT by police in Ghana, banned by ASIC, bankrupted, sent packing from Darwin, pursued by Japan, disappeared into the US, Luke Butler is back home in Queensland with plans to become Australia’s biggest cattle breeder and land holder.

But does he have a dollar to his name?

Mr Butler, 61, best known as a disastrously unsuccessful airline magnate, is quietly making some big claims about moving on some of the north’s most iconic and profitable cattle stations.

He has raised cash for a deposit worth several million for the iconic Riveren and Inverway stations in the Northern Territory, owned by the Indonesian giant Santosa, which operates locally as Japfa Santori Australia.

Mr Butler sprang into action after News Corp questioned him yesterday, trying to circumvent fears of a “negative” story by telling the Australian Financial Review the $60m deal for the stations was done.

However it understood the deal is still in the settlement period.

Mr Butler’s scheme, which appears to offer Asian investors a way to access vast land holdings while avoiding the requirements of the Foreign Investment Review Board, would make him one of Australia’s biggest cattle breeder and exporters.

He is said to be eyeing off at least 10 significant Northern Territory pastoral leases, in a time of soaring cattle prices, but has no history in the industry. He was described in the book Kings of Stings, on Australian swindlers, as “one of the great contemporary financial conmen”.

Luke Butler has grand plans to become a major player in Northern Territory’s cattle market. Picture: Murray Ware

Mr Butler founded the Global Air charter company in 1997, as well as raising millions to launch Oz Airlines, which never took off, reportedly leaving a lot of angry creditors.

In 2000, he did a $6 million deal with the Japanese Government to supply a 747 that was to fly to Lebanon to snatch members of the Japanese Red Army terror group as they were released from prison, and to repatriate them to Japan to face new charges.

Mr Butler sourced an ageing Air China 747 that was found not airworthy and couldn’t make the appointment in Lebanon, forcing the Japanese to make other arrangements. In 2003, Queensland’s Supreme Court ordered him to pay Japan’s costs.

Things went wrong for him in Ghana, where he’d gone to start a cut-price airline. By mid-2005, police had a warrant out for his arrest for fraud. Back in Australia, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission put a three-year ban on him from managing corporations while he was an undischarged bankrupt.

Last year, Mr Butler and his Ghanaian-born wife Simone, who runs an African restaurant in Maleny, north of Brisbane, were ordered in the District Court of Queensland to repay a $160,000 defaulted loan.

Mr Butler is telling people he has made “billions” from old power plants in the US.

He describes himself as the trustee of The Archipelago Beef Trusts, founded in March. Mr Butler would not confirm the Japfa Santori deal, and its Australian boss did not return calls.

He’s also been in contact with the Consolidated Pastoral Company, headquartered in Brisbane, whose massive holdings in the Territory include Bunda, Auvergne, Carlton Hill and its mothership, Newcastle Waters. CEO Troy Setter confirmed he’d met Mr Butler, but said CPC’s properties were not for sale.

He is also understood to be trying to acquire privately owned Ban Ban Springs and Scott Creek stations, which have been on the market for years.

The problem for those entering into contracts with Mr Butler is that in the far north it’s mustering season. Once a contract has been initialled, it prevents the owner from conducting operations, such as getting cattle onto trucks and ships.

Luke Butler, here pictured in 2003, has a colourful business past. Picture: Patrick Hamilton

Veteran Darwin developer George Milatos remembers well when Butler came to town in the late 80s, signing up to buy his Harbour View Plaza for $11m, plus some acreage.

“He moved up here with his Rolls Royce and his (then) wife, wearing $200 suits, travelling interstate every second week,” says Mr Milatos. “The Rolls Royce, we later found out, was hired. He was all front.”

Mr Milatos says Mr Butler had an unconditional contract to buy Harbour View but “created his own balance sheet showing he was worth $17m, on the back of my assets. This is what he did to impress people to bankroll him.

“It came to the point that the banks saw through him. The 90-day settlement came up and he had no money.

“He quietly slipped into his hired Rolls Royce, pissed off and we never saw him again.”

Mr Butler has told people he is commissioning two ships out of Asia that will be specially adapted to make the journeys kinder to cattle, says he has bought a number of helicopters, and is claiming he can build a huge herd of breeders within a year or two.

That is highly unlikely given the current cattle shortage, which is struggling to meet foreign demand.

In response to written questions about his plans for a cattle empire, he instead offered detailed explanations on his bankruptcy and the Japan debacle.

He hinted that his role as trustee over The Archipelago Beef Trusts was to provide a way for Asian investors looking to acquire big Australian pastoral businesses was to sell them “the output and production of these assets rather than ‘selling the farm’”.

It appears Asian investors would funnel money into his trust account, he would hold buy the assets, and the investors would take the proceeds of cattle sales without running foul of the FIRB.

“There does appear to be some strong areas of public sentiment against selling the farm as opposed to selling the produce,” Mr Butler says.

Which would appear to mean that he, as the Australian party, would retain the underlying leasehold.

He said on Wednesday: “I am continually inquiring about properties in Australia and overseas. I do have interested parties with whom I may be involved in the future.

“Until any of my business dealings are finalised, I am not in a position to comment due to commercial-in-confidence considerations.”

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