How Irelands’ Angus empire rose and fell

It all happened so fast. The stud established in 2003 hit trouble in the past two years.

Happier times: Ireland Angus stud’s Corey and Prue Ireland at a bull sale on their property near Wagga Wagga in southern NSW in 2013.

THEY were upwardly mobile.

Trips to Europe, skiing in Colorado’s Aspen, designer clothes, his and hers Range Rovers and kids enrolled at Scots College boys private school in Sydney.

A website portrayed their Angus stud as a successful business.

Corey and Prue Ireland had the beef cattle world at their feet.

Not bad from humble beginnings.

Sources told The Weekly Times Mr Ireland grew up in Warragul.

Although his parents were not involved in beef cattle farming, he established Irelands Angus in 1984, aged nine years old.

He went to work for the Kyloh Angus stud and Fernleigh Angus stud, both near Warragul, in the 1990s.

Fernleigh principal John Blyth said he was a “quite a charming young man”.

Mr Blyth said he was a bloke “the local women wanted their daughters to marry”.

Mr Ireland was an ardent showman of cattle and met Prue Gray through the showing network.

Ms Gray was the only daughter of Hardys Wines accountant and company secretary Ian Gray and his wife Janet, of Adelaide.

Ms Gray left school in Year 10 and became a nanny.

She later moved to Melbourne where she got a job in the Essendon Football Club’s merchandise shop through her father’s connection to former Australian Football League chief executive officer Wayne Jackson, who also worked in the Hardys wine empire.

She was also keen on showing cattle.

Mr Ireland married Ms Gray in a big wedding ceremony at a Geelong district winery in 2002.

The guests included sporting identity brothers Gillon and Hamish McLachlan and Channel 9 weather presenter Livinia Nixon.

Hamish McLachlan was MC at the wedding.

The Irelands moved to Ivydell, a 125 hectare farm at Kyeamba south of Wagga Wagga, to establish his Angus stud about 2003.

Irelands Angus bull sale, Kyeamba

Mr Ireland began working full-time in the finance department of Landmark after moving to the regional centre and was employed there for more than 10 years.

Sources said the Irelands also ran a bookshop from 2004 until they closed it in 2016.

Mrs Ireland also ran Prue Ireland Interiors, a house interior design company with offices in Wagga Wagga and Sydney.

In August, 2011, in conjunction with a business partner, she established Podland Pty Ltd, which ran a fitness centre, Xceler8, in Wagga Wagga.

The business was later sold to fitness chain Club Lime.

In December, 2011, the Irelands set up CD & PJ Ireland Pty Limited as the trustee for the Ireland family trust.

It had been the vehicle for the Ireland Angus business for the past eight years.

Wealthy and prominent investors sank large amounts of money into various investment schemes based on convincing arguments by Mr Ireland.

Westpac, National Australia Bank and the Bank of Queensland loaned money to the Irelands.

But over the past two years, Ireland debts began to mount and some were not repaid.

A string of creditors have taken CD & PJ Ireland Pty Limited and associated company Irelands Angus Breeding, plus Mr and Mrs Ireland, to various courts to get what they were owed.

One of the biggest was Elders, which was owed about $660,000 over a cattle transaction.

When East Coast Stockfeeds won permission in the courts on November 19 last year to wind up CD & PJ Ireland Pty Limited and appoint Andrew Bowcher and Tim Gumbleton, of RSM Australia Partners, as liquidators, the full extent of the Irelands’ Angus empire began to unravel.

Debts of at least $10.5 million show up in the liquidators’ initial report.

But The Weekly Times is aware of some Ireland creditors which were not listed in the report.

The liquidators did identify some assets collectively amounting to $4.7 million but question marks remain over some of the valuations.

A property at Edgecliff in Sydney was valued at $1.78 million.

But Holstons Pastoral Company at Ensay in Gippsland has placed a caveat over the property and personal property of the directors to protect its debt of $1.47 million, according to the liquidators’ report.

On December 24, Westpac Banking Corporation took the Ireland family trust’s new trustee, IFTT Pty Ltd, to the Supreme Court to appoint Morgan Kelly and Will Colwell, of KPMG, as receivers to livestock and frozen embryos on the Ivydell property to protect $3.5 million loaned by the bank.

Mr Ireland said CD & PJ Ireland Pty Limited was “struggling due to drought”.

He would not disclose how many cattle he had, as it was “commercially sensitive information”.

Sources said a week before Christmas, South Australia police were seeking to interview Mrs Ireland at a property at Glenelg, once owned by her father.

But she had left the property a short time earlier.

The Weekly Times does not make any allegations against Mr and Mrs Ireland.

Sources also said the Irelands claimed Mr Ireland was going to work for mining and pastoral magnate Gina Rinehart.

But a spokesman for Hancock Agriculture — Ms Rinehart’s agricultural arm — said it was untrue.

“This gentleman is not in the system and, as such, Hancock will not comment,” he said.