Murdoch's son-in-law adds $22m farm to cattle empire

Mr MacLeod is part of a growing pool of high-net worth business leaders seeing opportunities to breed high-quality beef cattle, while also tacking climate change. Wilmot Cattle Company sequesters carbon in the soil on its properties by using techniques such a rotational grazing.

Last year Microsoft agreed to pay $500,000 for Wilmot’s carbon credits in what was then the single biggest trade of carbon credits by an Australian farming business

“We are now grazing cattle in such a way that they are not net emitters of carbon, they are net sequesters of carbon,” Mr MacLeod told The Australian Financial Review last year.

It’s a strategy being employed by the likes of Tim Samway’s Packhorse Pastoral Company, whose plans to build a $1.5 billion cattle and carbon fund are backed by Rich Lister Terry Snow.

A 180 per cent surge in the price of Australian Carbon Credit Units last year, as more companies look to offset their emissions to attain net zero status, has added to the appeal of carbon sequestration for many owners of large-scale farming enterprises.

The acquisition of Paradise Creek Station by Mr MacLeod’s Wilmot Cattle Company ended 116 years of ownership by the Nicholas family and its descendants.

One of the oldest properties in the Inverell district – it was first settled in 1839 and was famously depicted in the 1895 painting Bailed Up by Australian impressionist painter, Tom Roberts – Paradise Creek Station offers fertile basalt soils, Macintyre River, Paradise Creek and Back Creek frontage and average annual rainfall of 871 mm.

Amid the heightened appetite for premium livestock properties given record beef prices, selling agents LAWD said Paradise Creek attracted more than 80 enquiries from across multiple states.

“Properties of such quality and of this scale are scarce and rarely come to market in the New England region, and this was reflected in the robust buyer interest we received from corporate ventures, family-farm enterprises and individuals,” said LAWD director Simon Cudmore.

Wilmot Cattle Company general manager, Stuart Austin, said the acquisition completed the business’s recent phase of expansion.

“Our goal is to establish a breeding herd on some of Paradise Creek’s rougher country, while further developing the open country so the property can trade cattle year-round,” Mr Austin said.