Gina Rinehart snaps up 7000ha NSW cattle station

A grazing property in northern NSW has been sold to Australia’s richest person as the mining magnate continues to grow her Wagyu cattle herd. See the details.

Australia’s richest person has further expanded her sprawling NSW agricultural portfolio, swooping on a 7000ha station in the north of the state.

Gina Rinehart’s S Kidman & Co has made its first acquisition in more than 20 years, acquiring Jindabyne Station, located in northern NSW, about 80km from Inverell.

The Weekly Times understands the deal was worth about $35m, via an off-market sale, while the seller of Jindabyne Station remains undisclosed. S Kidman & Co representatives declined to comment on the sale.

It is believed the property has the capacity to run 3500 breeding cows and will be integrated into the expanding Kidman Premium Wagyu operation.

S Kidman & Co are currently advertising for a machinery operator/station hand at the Jindabyne Station, which it described as a mixed grazing and fodder crop producing property, located 23km east of Ashford.

“It’s (Jindabyne Station) a beef cattle production system with the main emphasis on producing kgs (kilograms) of beef through improving the land, our pasture systems as well as our properties infrastructure including paddock subdivisions and water,” the listing said.

Hancock Prospecting chair Gina Rinehart.

Gina Rinehart, whose wealth exceeds an estimated $46bn, owns a 67 per cent stake in S. Kidman & Co, with China’s Shanghai CRED owning the other 33 per cent stake.

In recent years the S. Kidman & Co portfolio has changed shape significantly following the sale of 10 of the country’s most famous cattle stations, totalling a combined 6.7 million hectares.

Some of the capital from these sales was redeployed to purchase the 10,029ha Moolan Downs Station in Queensland’s Western Downs and the 8371ha Ottley Station in northern NSW from Packhorse Pastoral for about $80 million combined.

Earlier this year a deal worth $70m-plus was struck for the 10,000ha Wongaboori Station — a grazing property at Mendooran, about 90km northeast of Dubbo.

Hancock Agriculture and S. Kidman & Co are one of the largest producers of Wagyu and commercial cattle. Picture: File (Zoe Phillips).

The Wongaboori Station purchase expanded Ms Rinehart’s agricultural stronghold in the wider Mendooran district to more than 26,000ha, adding it to the existing 16,600ha Glencoe Station, Boogadah, Caigan and Hiddendale aggregation.

The Glencoe Aggregation has become a hub for Hancock Agriculture’s full-blood Wagyu F1 herd, which has become one of the largest in Australia at more than 12,000-head, following Ms Rinehart’s shift toward the breed a decade ago.

In total Ms Rinehart’s Hancock Agriculture and S. Kidman & Co pastoral enterprises own more than 20 properties across Australia, spanning about 3.5 million hectares with a herd of more than 150,000 head, making it one of the country’s largest producers of Wagyu and commercial cattle.