Farm ownership Australia: Buyers turn their attention to grain, beef giants

THERE’S movement at the station as some of Australia’s biggest beef cattle and cropping operations hit the market.

Consolidated Pastoral Company chief executive Troy Setter.

THERE’S movement at the station as some of Australia’s biggest beef cattle and cropping operations hit the market.

Western Australia’s biggest farmer, John Nicoletti, who operates over 200,000ha in the state’s wheatbelt, last week confirmed he would offer his entire operation for sale in a deal that could fetch $85 million.

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The sale, comprising 76,000ha of freehold land and 127,000ha of leasehold country, is said to mark the biggest-ever offering of broadacre farmland in Australia. It will include the 70,000ha parcel of land Mr Nicoletti sold to Hong Kong-based CK Life Sciences for $36 million in 2016 and subsequently leased back.

The Nicoletti sale comes just months after it was confirmed Australia’s biggest privately owned beef business, Consolidated Pastoral Company, is on the market with an asking price of about $1 billion.

CPC covers 17 properties on 5.5 million hectares in Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia. It is majority-owned by the UK Terra Firma Group, who bought it from the Packer family in 2009.

It also follows the decision in February by New Zealand potato king Alan Pye to list his Tasmanian mixed-farming empire, covering 22,000ha and milking 4000 dairy cows, running 8000 beef cattle and 7000 sheep for about $70 million. It has already been a hot year for property deals, led most notably by the sale of the final properties of the once-dominant Twynam Agricultural Group. Twynam last month sold the 32,730ha Merrowie Station at Hillston in NSW to US investment group MRA Merrowie Pty Ltd and the 13,387ha Jemalong Station and citrus planting at Forbes to Netherlands-based Optifarm Pty Ltd. April was a big month for Optifarm, which also snapped up the 15,000ha Gundaline at Carrathool to add to the 4000ha Uri Park at Darlington Point bought last year.

Also in the south, Mildura’s Nangliloc Colligan Farms, and its 700ha of citrus and table grape orchards, sold to Hong Kong-based CK Life Sciences for $46 million in March.

In northern Australia, sales this year have included the 100,000ha Portland Downs Station at Isisford in Queensland, which the North Australian Pastoral Company bought from Dutch company GP Cattle for $23 million last month.

Also last month, central Australian cattleman Viv Oldfield added the 324,000ha Maryvale Station at Alice Springs to his holdings of more than four million hectares.

Rural Funds Group last week announced an agreement to buy the 7600ha beef property, Comanche, at Glenroy in Queensland, for $15.7 million.