Palgrove to sell Palgrove and Killaloo beef farms

One of Australia’s leading beef producers — owned by a Kiwi sovereign wealth fund, are selling two properties, which span more than 4200ha combined.

Palgrove are selling two Queensland cattle properties, the 2566ha Palgrove, at Dalveen and the 1651ha Killaloo, at Drillham.

One of Australia’s leading beef producers, owned by a Kiwi sovereign wealth fund, are selling two of their Queensland properties, which span more than 4200ha combined.

Queensland-based Palgrove, who run Australia’s largest registered Charolais herd, are selling the 2566ha namesake property, Palgrove, at Dalveen in the Southern Downs, and the 1651ha Killaloo, at Drillham in the Western Downs.

Backed by the New Zealand Superannuation Fund, Palgrove said it was selling both Palgrove and Killaloo as part of a strategic refocus to double the scale of its commercial breeding herd to about 6000 cows and strengthening its position in high-performance beef genetics.

As part of their enterprise Palgrove are a significant supplier of Angus, Brangus and Ultrablack genetics, as well as a commercial livestock enterprise consisting of about 2000 breeders and 3000 crossbred ewes.

“The Dalveen property has been a high-performance breeding and backgrounding hub, while Killaloo has historically supported paddock bull sales, which will now be conducted from Palgrove’s new, purpose-built selling complex at Glen Wilga, near Chinchilla,” Palgrove chief executive officer Will Heath said.

Working infrastructure at Palgrove (picture) includes steel cattle yards with a covered working area, outpost portable yards, original yards with a stable and feed shed, a shearing shed, extensive machinery shedding, workshops and storage along with a hay shed, two grain silos and pasture seed storage.

No price guide for the assets has been released to the public.

Including the 1138ha Glen Wilga property, Palgrove also runs the 9508ha Macintyre Station at Bukkulla in northern NSW and the 3613ha Ben Lomond Aggregation, at Ben Lomond, 32km southwest of Glen Innes, also in northern NSW.

The Bondfield family founded the Palgrove pastoral enterprise, with Peter and Valerie Bondfield starting their now famed Charolais stud in 1970.

In 2016 David and Prue Bondfield were crowned The Weekly Times Coles 2016 Farmer of the Year, and in 2017 the Bondfields went into a partnership with the New Zealand Superannuation Fund. The fund became the full owner of Palgrove in 2022.

Killaloo (pictured), has 1447ha of brigalow belah scrub country, with 204ha of narrow-leaved ironbark, with soils comprising a productive mix of predominantly deep brown and grey clay scrub soils and small areas of lighter yellow duplex loams.

The Palgrove property has a conservative estimated carrying capacity of 1400 Adult Equivalents (AE), supported by tropical pastures, including Rhodes, digit and blue grasses, along with seasonal herbages, with areas planted to oats for winter forage.

Separated by about 350km, Killaloo at Drillham, comprises 13 freehold titles and is suited to cattle breeding, backgrounding or finishing, along with mixed forage cropping, to support an estimated carry capacity of 785 AE.

LAWD director Simon Cudmore is handling the sale of two Palgrove properties, with agents Darren Collins (Palgrove) and Grant Veivers (Killaloo).

“This is a rare chance to secure two of Queensland’s better-known pastoral holdings that have been strategically improved to underscore the performance of one of Australia’s most highly regarded beef enterprises,” Mr Cudmore said.

The pair of notable listings by Palgrove comes after they offloaded the 3605ha Gilgal Station at Cootamundra, in southern NSW for $53.5m to Lukas Asset Management- a Germany family office, who appointed SLM Partners and Impact Ag to manage the property via their regenerative agriculture vehicle, Agri Carbon Investments.