Amid growing demand for prime grazing country and record cattle prices, investment banker David Williams added another 470 hectares to his cattle property on Melbourne’s northern fringe, which is leased to renowned wagyu beef pioneer David Blackmore.
Mr Williams, founder of corporate advisory firm Kidder Williams and currently advising Roc Partners in its takeover bid for Vitalharvest, paid $17.5 million for the 1392-hectare Fairfield property in the Darraweit Guim area near Romsey in 2018 when he acquired it with his wife Angela from the Bright family.
In recent months the Williamses have increased the scale of Fairfield to almost 2000 hectares, after acquiring two neighbouring holdings known as Roundhill and Brassy.
Roundhill, measuring 300 hectares, was acquired for $2.6 million while the 170-hectare Brassy was bought for $1.7 million. Both deals were negotiated by James Beer of Colliers International.
“Across all sectors, we continue to see strong interest from both buyers that have existing agricultural investments, as well as new entrants,” Mr Beer said.
“Low interest rates and stable earnings are driving demand from both local and offshore investors, and given the current shortage of supply, we expect 2021 will continue to see strong prices across the board.′
Mr Williams’ tenant, Blackmore Wagyu is regarded as one of the country’s top wagyu producers having pioneered the production of 100 per cent Fullblood Wagyu beef in Australia. Blackmore Wagyu beef is served in top restaurants such as Rockpool and Aria and exported to over a dozen countries.
In another wagyu sector deal, Queensland-based purebred wagyu breeder Muirhead Pastoral Company forked out $11.5 million to acquire the 1935 hectare Big Ben aggregation near Glen Innes in NSW’s New England region.
Muirhead, based at Weetalaba near Collinsville, acquired the properties known as Little Ben, Big Ben and Ben View from the Scherf family who had run a successful farming and grazing operation over four generations.
Schute Bell Property’s Phil Evans and Cameron McIvor alongside Landmark Harcourts marketed the Big Ben aggregation.
These two wagyu deals follow London-based Financial Review Rich Lister Sir Michael Hintze paying about $36 million in February for historic Minjah, a 2846 hectare holding at Hawkesdale in Victoria’s Western District.
Minjah was acquired by Sir Michael’s MH Premium Farms, which operates 19 properties across 70,000 hectares in eastern Australia producing prime lambs, beef, wool, cereal, oilseeds, cotton and sugar.
Minjah was offered for sale by Xinjiang Tianshan Animal Husbandry Bio-engineering, which bought it for $25.25 million in 2014 from by lamb exporter Tim Clarke and his wife Jen,
It was established by the Ware family in 1845 and includes a fully restored 1870s bluestone homestead with nine bedrooms.
Mining magnate Gina Rinehart, who last week put almost 2 million hectares of WA and NT grazing country and nearly 110,000 head of cattle up for sale in a $300 million offering, owns the largest full-blood and pure breed wagyu herd in the world.
https://www.afr.com/property/commercial/kidder-williams-boss-beefs-up-in-wagyu-20210311-p579zx