Ireland Angus cattle herd proves a headache
Two days in August have been set down by a judge to resolve who owns what cattle in the Ireland Angus stable. The case will prove difficult to sort through, writes Peter Hemphill.
THE NSW Supreme Court’s Justice John Sackar has one of the toughest jobs in Australia at the moment: sorting out who owns what cattle in the Ireland Angus stable.
Justice Sackar has set down two days in August to resolve the ownership of cattle identified by receivers installed by Westpac Bank as managed by Corey and Prue Ireland, of Kyeamba near Wagga Wagga, plus their various entities.
Only a few weeks ago, the receivers circulated a list of 1200 cattle to the court, but sources told The Weekly Times, the list has now been culled back to about 540 — a sign the bank has realised the collateral it held over loans does not exist in its entirety.
Westpac had a Personal Property Securities Registry registration over 1654 stud and commercial cattle for loans of about $3.5 million to the Irelands.
Last week’s court hearing indicates there are about a dozen parties who believe they have an interest in those 540 Ireland cattle.
Justice Sackar noted that it is quite possible that individual cattle might have two or three parties claiming ownership.
Wagga Wagga investor Richard Allsopp said he paid $605,000 for 370 cattle from the dispersal sale of the Jondaryan stud near Toowoomba in Queensland in 2015.
Under the deal, arranged by Mr Ireland, most of the cattle would be managed by Irelands Angus, with the herd, plus their progeny, to be resold within nine months of the purchase from the Jondaryan stud.
But Mr Allsopp got a shock in 2018 when he engaged Elders to trace the Jondaryan cattle to discover 70 cows were sold to meat processors and petfood manufacturers and another 86 cattle were sold three years earlier, to Trent Walker of the Keringa Angus stud in Lameroo, South Australia, for $275,000.
In affidavits to the Supreme Court last year, Mr Allsopp said that until confronted in August 2018, Mr Ireland denied selling Jondaryan cattle except for a few cull animals.
Mr Allsopp said he had not received any funds for sales to Mr Walker or meat processors.
Mr Ireland told the court CD & PJ Ireland bought the 370 Jondaryan cattle from its owners and all but one was on-sold to Mr Allsopp’s family trust. He disputed most of Mr Allsopp’s claims.
Emails in 2019 showed Mrs Ireland declined to provide National Livestock Identification System registration numbers for the cattle as requested by Mr Allsopp.
Clouding the Westpac court case is that most, if not all, of the parties claiming ownership do not have NLIS numbers detailing which cattle they own.
In the Supreme Court a fortnight ago, lawyers for Henk and Helma Van Den Heuval — half owners in Irelands Angus Breeding Pty Ltd in partnership with the Irelands — claimed they owned a vast number of the 540 cattle identified.
But they could not detail to Justice Sackar how many.
It is not clear whether the Van Den Heuvels were claiming personal ownership or through Irelands Angus Breeding.
There have been clouds over many Ireland Angus cattle sales in the past.
In May 2018, Elders took Supreme Court action against the trustee of the Ireland family trust, CD & PJ Ireland Pty Ltd, to recoup $660,000 over a cattle deal.
A source said Elders acted as a clearing house for transfer of 300 cattle from CD & PJ Ireland to Ireland Angus Breeding. A source said the deal was a paper one, with Elders buying the stock off CD & PJ Ireland for $600,000 plus GST, holding them for a month, then selling them to Ireland Angus Breeding for the same amount. Elders paid the $660,000 but months later had not recouped its outlay.
Elders took the court action to wind up CD & PJ Ireland in May 2018 to get its $660,000, and the case was settled out of court two months later.
It was not the first time Elders had problems with Ireland Angus sales.
Elders and Landmark had for years jointly run the annual Ireland Angus bull sale at Kyeamba.
A source said phantom bids persistently emerged at the sales, with Mr Ireland “making excuses” as to why certain parties should not be invoiced when it came to squaring up the ledger at the end. “After a while, we soon figured out the bidders never existed,” the source said.
“They put high prices up to make the sale look good.”
The source said Elders pulled out of the sales after lack of commissions made them unviable to cover the pastoral house’s costs.
Another source said a Wagga Wagga cattleman was billed for cattle at a sale he did not attend or buy over the phone. It was described as a clerical error.
The Weekly Times is not suggesting the Irelands or any other party acted illegally.
But all this raises the question in August, when the proof of ownership comes back to the Supreme Court, whether Justice Sackar should be asking, not only for documentation, but also forensically looking at some parties’ bank accounts to see if money actually changed hands after sales, or if they did, were not reimbursed down the track.
Clearly, there are not enough cattle left in the Ireland stable for everyone to be happy at the end of the Westpac court proceedings.
One of the lessons from the court case may result in financiers and buyers in all future livestock trades insisting on NLIS numbers and inspection of animals.
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