Macquarie Asset Management purchase Cubbie Station from Chinese company Shandong Ruyi

One of the southern hemisphere’s largest irrigated farms, Cubbie Station, has returned to Australian ownership after a nine-figure sale.

An Australian cotton producing powerhouses has returned to Australian hands after an agricultural fund managed by Macquarie Asset Management purchased the farm from its Chinese owners.

The 90,000ha Cubbie Station, located at Dirranbandi, three hours west of Goondiwindi in Queensland, was purchased in a controversial deal in 2012 by Chinese company Shandong Ruyi for $232 million.

Macquarie Asset Management announced they have now secured 100 per cent ownership of the Cubbie Station, associated properties and cotton ginnery through a recently settled deal for an undisclosed price.

Macquarie Asset Management acquired a 49 per cent share in the station in 2019, reducing Ruyi’s share of the aggregation from 80 per cent to 51 per cent at the time.

10 years after Ruyi’s venture into ownership of Australian agricultural assets, they have exited the market as Australia cotton farm prices soar.

The day‐to‐day operations of Cubbie Station are expected to remain relatively unchanged with Paul Brimblecombe to continue as the chief executive according to a statement from Macquarie Asset Management.

“All current employee positions remain unchanged and there will also be no change to the Voluntary Water Contribution that was announced when the Fund acquired its initial 49 per cent interest in 2019,” the statement said.

During Shandong Ruyi’s tenure, via its subsidiary Cubbie Agriculture, the company invested $26 million to maintain and improve the efficiency of Cubbie’s operations and spent over $25 million acquiring and upgrading the Dirranbandi ginnery.

The aggregation is one of the southern hemisphere’s largest irrigated farms with 22,100ha of irrigated cropping fields, supported by extensive on-farm irrigation infrastructure covering 13,300ha.

The mammoth farm also holds 8,900ha of cereal cropping area and 49,400ha of grazing, remnant vegetation and balance area.

The farm can produce in excess of 250,000 bales of cotton, accounting for around 10 per cent of national cotton output.

Alternatively, Cubbie produces wheat, sorghum, sunflowers, barley, chickpeas and corn crops.

Shandong Ruyi (Ruyi) is one of China’s largest textile manufacturers, but the company assembled by textile magnate Qiu Yafu, has come under financial pressure in recent times, defaulting on a loan used to buy Lycra Co.

The headline cotton farm purchase comes after the Reardon family listed their Worral Farms Aggregation for sale, which could reportedly fetch around $400m.