Currabubula Station sold for more than $8 million
The founders of prominent Sydney-based commodities trader United World Enterprises (UWE) sold Currabubula Station near Tamworth, at the second attempt, for more than $8 million.
The renowned 2407 hectare Liverpool Plains grazing and cropping property, which Freda Feng and her husband Jimmy Liu bought for around $7.5 million in 2015, went to auction on May 28 this year but failed to sell.
A sale was negotiated after auction, with contracts exchanged with Paced Investments – a company owned and directed by Colliers International NSW chief executive and managing director of industrial Malcolm Tyson – in early June.
However, the UWE founders were forced to auction the property again on September 27 following an inquiry by Andrew Barnden from insolvency accountants Rodgers Reidy, acting in his capacity as controller of farming equipment at Currabubula (including two tractors) on behalf of Commonwealth Bank, which had provided UWE with equipment finance.
Currabubula passed in at auction again on September 27, but sold soon after for more than $8 million through Ray White Tamworth’s Riley Gibson.
Mr Gibson declined to give any details about the buyer, saying his client had requested confidentiality. However, industry website Beef Central reported the buyer was a Sydney-based Australian.
Title deeds to Currabubula Station show Sydney-based Mr Tyson’s Paced Investments still has a purchase agreement with the vendors. He is also the sole director and owner of Currabubula Pastoral, a subsidiary of Paced Investments.
Mr Tyson could not be reached to confirm if he bought Currabubula.
Currabubula lies 40 kilometres south-west of Tamworth and is regarded as one of NSW’s finest cattle and cropping properties. It is also one of the oldest dating back to the 1800s.
Apart from its highly productive land, Currabubula also has 24 paddocks, cattle yards and multiple silos along with a 741 megalitre water allocation.
There’s also a 10-bedroom main homestead and a four-bedroom manager’s residence with its own cinema room.
The vendors founded UWE in 1993 as a small trading house, exporting primarily Australian grain and pulses to Asia.
They later expanded into beef exporting when they purchased Currabubula in April 2015 from Lisa Pollock. Here they finished Wagyu and Angus cattle as part of a paddock-to-plate sale of beef products to China.
UWE continues to trade.
