Former QIC boss Damien Frawley puts Qld cattle station on the market
Former Queensland Investment Corporation boss and current Mirvac director Damien Frawley has put a large organic-certified cattle station in Central Queensland on the market, that could reap as much as $17 million for him and his fellow investors.
Mr Frawley, a former Wallaby who is also the chair of superannuation fund Hostplus and who in July will add ASX-listed Elders to his roster of company directorships, is the largest shareholder in Blue Sky Beef, which owns 18,077ha Gowan Station, 70 km south of Blackall.
Comprising seven freehold titles, Gowan is certified organic and has a carrying capacity of 3000 livestock.
Blue Sky Beef snapped up Gowan station in 2016 for $7.2 million from Consolidated Pastoral Company, one of the country’s largest cattle and cropping operators (owned by UK investors Guy and Julia Hands through the Hands Family Office).
While pricing has not been disclosed – the sale of Gowan Station is being handled by rural veteran Bruce Douglas of Ray White – the latest Rural Bank Australian Farmland Values report found the median price per hectare in the Blackall Tambo region of Central Queensland was $924.
Based on this figure, Gowan Station could be worth around $16.7 million.
Mr Frawley and his wife Jodie, a historian, control about 37 per cent of Blue Sky Beef through their Stonehouse Pastoral Company. The other major investors in the Arcadia Valley beef producer are the McGuinness family and experienced cattle station operators Stewart and Emma Taylor.
Mr Taylor was the long-term manager of Roma district cattle property, Goldsborough, owned by the North Australian Pastoral Company (NAPCo) which QIC under Mr Frawley’s leadership acquired 80 per cent of in 2016.
Blue Sky Beef operates across more than 50,000ha of cattle country in the Blackall region and has spent more than $30 million on properties since 2010, a search of property records shows.
Mr Frawley, who did not respond to a request for comment, was the chief executive of QIC from 2012 until 2022. Before that, he led the Australian arm of US investment giant BlackRock for seven years. He started his corporate career at Barclays Global Investors in 1989 and then spent six years at Merrill Lynch Investment Management, including as head of retail sales.
Before his career in investment banking, Rockhampton-born Mr Frawley was a star Queensland rugby player, winning 10 test caps at lock for Australia between 1986 and 1988.
In other rural property news, prominent property developer Michael Malouf and his wife Heidi Middleton, the co-founder of fashion label Sass & Bide have emerged as the $16.2 million buyers at the auction of a 40.5ha beachfront block near Noosa.
Mr Malouf and Ms Middleton co-owned the 337 Teewah Beach Road block with the Cameron wheat farming family before it went to auction. It was put on the market following a Supreme Court order after the Camerons refused to sell it to Mr Malouf and Ms Middleton.
Ray White’s Mark Creevey, Tony Williams, Paul Butler and Paul Forrest handled the sales campaign. The Cameron family were the underbidders.
“Bidding starting at $4 million and was called on the market at $7 million before skyrocketing to $16.2 million with heated bidding,” Mr Williams said.
