Consolidated Pastoral Company for sale

ONE of Australia’s biggest pastoral empires is for sale, with the owner hoping to avoid a repeat of the foreign ownership fears that engulfed the sale of S Kidman and Co two years ago.

ONE of Australia’s biggest pastoral empires is for sale, with the owner hoping to avoid a repeat of the foreign ownership fears that engulfed the sale of S Kidman and Co two years ago.

The Consolidated Pastoral Company, founded by media magnate Kerry Packer and now owned by British private equity firm Terra Firma, comprises an area bigger than Switzerland and is worth around $1 billion.

Its 16 cattle stations, carrying 400,000 cattle, are spread from northern WA through the Northern Territory down to southern Queensland and it part owns two feedlots in Indonesia.

The sale, which was advertised last week as part of new Foreign Investment Review Board regulations, will eclipse that of S Kidman and Co, which was bought by Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting in partnership with Shanghai CRED Real Estate Stock Co for $365 million in 2016, after the Government blocked the sale to a solely Chinese buyer.

But with the opportunity to buy individual stations, plus new laws that would encourage Australian buyers to bid, CPC hopes the sale will avoid the controversy that surrounded the sale of S Kidman and Co when some Australian bidders claim they were shut out of the sale process.

“The process has been designed to make sure that potential Australian buyers are given every fair opportunity to participate,” CPC chief executive Troy Setter said. “There is already no shortage of interested Australian parties.”

Speculation has been rife that Gina Rinehart might bid for all or part of the company. When asked by The Weekly Times her spokesman responded with “no comment.”

The process is expected to take up to six months. Any bid by foreign bidders would be subject to Foreign Investment Review Board scrutiny and a veto from the Treasurer.

Terra Firma, a leading UK private equity firms, acquired the business in 2009.