Ex-Rabbitoh joins Brett Blundy with huge cattle station offering

Walhallow in Creswell, south-east of Darwin, is listed for more than $200 million, after it was first listed for sale in June last year.

Price expectations for Neutral Junction, which is being offered for the first time in 20 years, are understood to be about the $30 million mark.

The offerings come amid record beef prices and strong demand for large grazing properties from local producers, as seen by the $250 million of sales achieved to date by the country’s biggest landowner, mining magnate Gina Rinehart.

Before establishing himself as a Queensland cattleman and beef producer, Mr Frith played 49 first grade games for South Sydney between 1979 and 1981. He is considered a cult hero at the club for his ferocious tackling ability.

He purchased Neutral Junction in 2002 to add to holdings at Roma and Molven in Queensland.

Grass amid the desert

Set against a landscape of quartzite ridges and flat-topped hills near Barrow Creek in the Davenport region, Neutral Junction carries 7000 head of cattle including 4158 female breeders and about 120 bulls.

Among the standout features of Neutral Junction is the development of an irrigated hay farm in the middle of the desert.

There is now 120ha of grass under two pivots at the northern end of the property.

Harvested on average five times a year, the hay farm produces between five and six tonnes a hectare.

The hay farm is projected to produce more than 3000 tonnes of hay in the coming years – it now produces 2500 tonnes – for a worth of more than $1 million a year.

“Everything’s a risk up there, especially when you’re one of the first people to do it,” Mr Frith said in 2016.

The main homestead complex, about eight kilometres from the Sturt Highway, includes an 800-head capacity main cattle yard, a four-bedroom main homestead and numerous staff accommodation facilities.

Neutral Junction’s selling agent, Olivia Thompson of Nutrien Harcourts, said the property’s 1650-megalitre groundwater extraction licence provided diversification opportunities, including the potential to grow cotton, mung beans, peanuts and melons, while also providing an “immediate foothold in the booming Australian beef and agricultural industry”.

Alongside the offering of Neutral Station, Mr Blundy, founder of Aventus Group and retail brands such as Bras N Things and Lovisa, and his business partners, the Browns, have appointed Rawdon Briggs, Jesse Manuel and James Beer of Colliers International to market the Walhallow Aggregation as a walk in, walk out sale including a 61,000 cattle herd.

Made up of Walhallow Station and Cresswell Downs Station, and with an illustrious ownership history that includes the late cattle king Peter Sherwin and Macquarie’s Paraway Pastoral Company, Walhallow broke records in December 2015 when it sold for $100 million, the highest price paid at the time for a single cattle station.

“Walhallow Aggregation is now an institutional-grade north Australian beef enterprise offering unprecedented development quality in combination with a large-scale quality Brahman-based herd,” Mr Briggs said.

When the Walhallow Aggregation was put up for sale last year through Bentleys International Advisory, it was offered alongside a 316,970ha breeding property called Amungee Mungee, in the Daly Waters region, about 600 kilometres south of Darwin.

Amungee Mungee has since been sold by BBRC, the private investment firm of Mr Blundy, to the Browns.

Adrian Brown is the managing director of Bilba Group, which calls itself the “largest rural water development company in northern Australia”.

The Bilba Group includes Bullwaddy Pastoral Company, which runs 90,000 head of cattle on 1.4 million hectares.

“Only offers over $200 million will be even considered for the sale [of Walhallow] given the market conditions,” Mr Brown said.