MacLachlan family sell Australia’s biggest sheep station…again
The MacLachlan family has found another buyer for Australia’s largest sheep station after billionaire Andrew Forrest’s Fortescue Metals withdrew a bid to purchase the property for a renewable energy investment.
Rawlinna station, spreading 1,047,623 hectares or over 10,000 square kilometres, about 1200 kilometres east of Perth, is trading for more than $20 million, sources say, on a walk-in-walk out basis including sheep stock.
Consolidated Pastoral Company is now seeking to acquire it; formed by Kerry Packer, it has since 2020 been held by London Based Hands Family Office, led by husband and wife, Guy and Julia Hands.
It controls 3.2m ha across nine other local aggregations amongst them, Isis Downs, another major sheep station with a flock of over 100,000 merinos, and two Indonesian feed yard.
It plans to buy more Australian product, also for cattle and cropping.
Elders’ Tom Russo acted the for Jumbuck Pastoral; the family’s Hugh MachLachlan established the property in the 1960s – about seven decades after the company formed.
Having entered a sale agreement with CPC, approval is subject to the Foreign Investment Review Board.
End of an era for sheep station
CPC chief executive officer Troy Setter said the deal for Rawlinna, with a 400km exclusion fence, will see it return to large scale sheep and wool production (story continues below).
“Our owners, the Hands family, have held significant sheep production properties in the UK and we believe now is a good time to invest in Australia’s sheep and wool industry,” he added.
“Rawlinna represents an opportunity for us to…accelerate our ambition of building out a quality diversified portfolio by both geography and production type,” according to the executive.
“We now have assets in cattle, goat, sheep and wool production, natural capital and over 20,000 hectares of cropping capacity.”
“We will aim to build on the legacy of Jumbuck Pastoral by further developing Rawlinna to increase its sheep and wool production capacity in the years to come”.
Fortescue bid for the remote Nullabor asset in April 2023.
The CPC deal comes four years since Jumbuck acquired the 1.25 million hectare Wave Farm in the Northern Territory’s Victoria River for $104m.
Following the Rawlinna disposal, it will control c2.5m hectares.
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