CHINESE buyers are optimistic they will be able to secure the purchase of Australia’s biggest cattle station within weeks after the government rubber-stamped the sale of the nation’s largest dairy farm to foreign owners.
The Foreign Investment Review Board is considering bids, including at least two from Chinese firms, for the Kidman cattle empire and could give the green light within weeks.
Chinese companies Genius Link Group and Shanghai Pengxin are front- runners in the bidding for the Kidman cattle stations.
They have taken on Australian partners and agreed not to buy sensitive land near the Woomera rocket range in a bid to overcome objections by Treasurer Scott Morrison, who rejected their first bid last year.
But The Daily Telegraph has learned that there are as many as 12 major Chinese companies currently running the numbers on the properties.
They include Chongqing Hondo Agriculture Group, which has a kitty of $100 million ready to splash on cattle stations; Shandong Delisi Food Com, which in September paid $140 million for a 45 per cent stake in NSW beef farm Bindaree Beef Group; and Tianma Bearing Group, owned by one of China’s richest men, Xingfa Ma.
The sale could net the federal government another tax windfall, after the controversial Van Diemen’s Land Dairy Company purchase by a Chinese businessman tipped an instant $27 million tax benefit into the government’s coffers.
The FIRB this week paved the way for Moon Lake Investments to buy the 17,000ha Tasmanian dairy property for a cool $280 million, on the guarantee it obeys strict new anti-tax avoidance measures.
S. Kidman & Co head Greg Campbell said he assumed the same tax measures would be insisted on for Kidman.
The Daily Telegraph can reveal the Turnbull government will reap up to $9 million more in capital gains tax revenue by approving the sale of VDL to the Chinese firm than it would to an Australian-based buyer.
Critics of Treasurer Scott Morrison’s approval of the VDL sale said the short-term profit has put Australian food security at risk and increase food prices.
2GB’s Alan Jones led outrage at the “disgraceful decision” by branding Treasurer Scott Morrison “the Wayne Swan of the Liberal Party” while independent MP Andrew Wilkie said: “Today’s news just confirms the fact that the government either doesn’t understand or doesn’t care about the importance of Australian ownership of strategic assets.” Mr Morrison was unavailable for comment.
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