Michael Gordon buys Terrica sheep station
Former Financial Review Rich Lister Michael Gordon has teamed up with the Grimwade brothers to acquire the renowned Terrica Aggregation in south-east Queensland as high-net-worth capital pours into the sheep farming sector.
Terrica, a 15,990-hectare freehold property near Inglewood in the southern Darling Downs, was listed for sale in May by LCP Terrica with ownership split between companies owned by William Lempriere and Stirling McGregor, the co-chairmen of Melbourne fund manager Lempriere Capital.
It is understood Mr Gordon and brothers William and George Grimwade (sons of graziers Jane and Martin Grimwade and descendants of one of the country’s oldest sheep farming dynasties) paid about $14 million for Terrica to add to their sheep-breeding partnership, Grimwade & Gordon.
This partnership was set up in 2018 through Mr Gordon’s 105,000-hectare Noorama Station, south-east of Cunnamulla and has since grown to six properties spanning about 200,000 hectares and 700,000 head of livestock.
Mr Gordon, who initially made his money in the childcare sector, declined to comment when contacted by The Australian Financial Review.
He told industry website Beef Central the acquisition of Terrica made sense.
“A scale operation with that proximity (3hrs from Brisbane) is a rare opportunity. It also gives rain diversity to our production business,” he said.
Nick Myer and Andrew Williams of Elders Real Estate marketed Terrica, but declined to comment.
Earlier this month, Chinese company Harvest Agriculture paid about $60 million for Peter Yunghanns’ prized 5071-hectare sheep grazing and cropping farm Yaloak Estate near Ballan, north-west of Melbourne.
In March, The Australian Financial Review revealed that Australia’s largest importer of wool into China, Qingnan Wen, had emerged as the buyer of the renowned Mawallok estate and sheep station near Beaufort in western Victoria, paying around $25 million.
Adding to the high-profile deals, prominent Adelaide businessman and lawyer Adrian Tembel paid $7 million for Seabrook Farm one of the Fleurieu Peninsula’s top sheep farms while just a few kilometres away another Fleurieu sheep aggregation, Maylands, was bought in July by former mining boss Robert Champion de Crespigny for $20 million.
In another deal, Taralga, a 2354-hectare mixed-farming sheep and cropping property in the Mullengudgery District, north-west of Dubbo sold at auction this month for $5.2 million. It had been owned by the Green family since 1978.
Taralga, which typically carried a Merino flock of 2000 ewes, was marketed by Brian McAneney and Frank Power of Ray White Rural Dubbo.
Mr McAneney told The Australian Financial Review demand for farming properties was very high.
“We are getting more buyer enquiries now than we had in 2016, more offers and more sales.”
Driving this activity he said was a “good season, a very good outlook and cheap money”.
“Its created the perfect storm … everything is pointing to a very buoyant rural property market.”
Colliers International’s 2020 Agribusiness Research and Outlook Report forecast strong demand for sheep farms following drastically reduced sheep numbers due to the recent severe drought.
“The outlook for sheep, lamb and wool industries is overall verypositive, as markets within all these sectors have recorded highs overthe past 12 to 18 months and the predictions moving forward will likelysee records broken moving into and throughout 2020,” said valuer Sam Julian.
