Tassie farm sold in state’s biggest rural property deal of the year

A historic 1236ha Tasmanian grazing farm has changed hands for the first time in nearly a century after it was sold by renowned beef barons.

The 1236ha Mineral Banks property has been sold after it was held by the Foster family for 90 years.

A tightly held grazing farm in Tasmania’s northeast has been sold in the Apple Isle’s biggest rural property sale of the year so far.

The 1236ha Mineral Banks property, located at Ringarooma, 58km from Launceston, has been offloaded by the Foster family, ending its 90-year tenure of the holding.

Renowned beef barons, generations of the Foster family have owned Mineral Banks alongside a significant stake in one of Australia’s largest cattle enterprises, the North Australian Pastoral Company (NAPCo).

Listed for sale in February, Mineral Banks comprised 781ha of grazing farmland with 55ha used for intensive cropping and the balance of 400ha used for native forestry producing significant volumes of hardwood timber, also suited to biodiversity stewardship and carbon farming pursuits.

Details of the transaction remain undisclosed due to confidentiality arrangements. It is understood a private high-net worth family has purchased Mineral Banks.

The property was expected to field offers in the high-$20m price range.

Mineral Banks offered extensive river frontage with the Dorset River and New River traversing the property providing a highly reliable and secure water supply.

Mineral Banks, is located at Ringarooma, 58km from Launceston, in Tasmania’s northeast.

The property benefits from 420ML of Tasmanian irrigation water from the Upper Ringarooma scheme, irrigating Mineral Banks’ rich red loam and alluvial soil types.

The property’s structural improvements included multiple residential dwellings, machinery sheds, hay sheds, three sets of cattle yards, and a three-stand shearing shed.

Colliers Agribusiness agents Duncan McCulloch, Connor Dixon and Rawdon Briggs handled the sale of Mineral Banks but did not comment on the transaction.

The Foster family’s link to NAPCo dates back to the 1930s, but they have previously owned 43 per cent of the company.

In 2016 the Queensland Investment Corporation acquired an 80 per cent interest in NAPCo, with the Fosters retaining the remaining 20 per cent stake.

NAPCo runs about 200,000 cattle on six million hectares of land across Queensland and the Northern Territory.

A number of high-profile Tasmanian farms remain on the market, including the state’s biggest agricultural landholding Rushy Lagoon, a 21,744ha property listed for sale by the family of the late Allan Pye, regarded as one of New Zealand’s richest farmers.

The majority of Chinese businessman Lu Xianfeng’s 9542ha Van Dairy Ltd portfolio of historic beef and dairy farms near Woolnorth also remains on the market after they were offered for sale last April in a landmark listing.

Originally published as Tassie farm sold in state’s biggest rural property deal of the year