AUSTRALIA-WHAT ONE GENERATION MAKES THE NEXT SPENDS.
James Packer has ended his family’s 26-year connection with rural northern Australia by finalising the sale of Consolidated Pastoral Company.
His father, Kerry Packer, began building the cattle empire in 1983 with the purchase of Newcastle Waters Station in the Northern Territory .
He built it up to include 17 properties and become Australia ’s second largest pastoral company.
The entire company was sold to UK investment group, Terra Firma, last week.
Though the price wasn’t made public, Consolidated Pastoral Company chief executive Ken Warriner says it was an offer James Packer couldn’t refuse.
"An opportunity came along for him to exit this at a pretty reasonable price, and opportunities like this don’t come along all that often, where there’ll take on a pastoral company worth several million dollars," he says.
"Kerry sold Channel 9 and he was in love with Channel 9 - it’s just when an opportunity comes along, sometimes you do it."
The Packer family retains ownership of Ellerston, in the NSW Hunter Valley .
Meanwhile, a land exchange agreement has just been finalised between the Western Australian Government and Consolidated Pastoral Company.
The deal will see CPC surrender almost 200,000 hectares to the government from its Carlton Hill and Ivanhoe cattle stations.
Over three-quarters of that land will be used for conservation purposes, while around 30,000 hectares will be set aside for the future expansions to the Ord Irrigation Area.
In exchange for the land, the Consolidated Pastoral Company has been given more than 16,000 hectares of freehold title, allowing it to do whatever it likes with that land (unlike the restictions of the present pastoral lease).
CPC has paid the State Government more than $1 million to equalise the value of the land exchange.
