Foreign investors snap up Rawlinna sheep station
by Ben Wilmot
The famed Consolidated Pastoral Company has bought Australia’s biggest sheep station Rawlinna after it was put on the block when tycoon Andrew Forrest last year dumped plans to buy it for a renewable energy project.
The CPC business, which was once controlled by the late Kerry Packer, is now owned by English financier and investor Guy and his wife Julia Hands through the Hands Family Office.
Rawlinna was developed in the 1960s by veteran grazier Hugh MacLachlan after he spotted a WA land parcel while on a stop-off on the Indian Pacific train.
Real Estate firm Elders said the MacLachlan family’s Jumbuck Pastoral and Consolidated Pastoral Company had entered into a sale and purchase agreement for the station for an undisclosed sum.
The deal is conditional on CPC receiving Foreign Investment Review Board approval for the acquisition of the station, and the customary WA government approval to the transfer of the pastoral lease. Rawlinna sold on a going concern “walk-in, walk-out” basis, including the sheep flock.
Elders executive general manager Tom Russo noted the sale drew global interest. “The sale process drew significant interest from the market, including large sheep production enterprises from both the east and west coast, new entrants and international investors. It was excellent to see the confidence in the industry,” he said.
Jumbuck Pastoral’s Jock MacLachlan said Rawlinna Station “occupies an important space in our family’s history”.
“We are delighted that it will be passed to a custodian the calibre of CPC, with a strong record of sustained investment in our industry and whose owner takes a multi-generational view,” he said.
CPC chief executive Troy Setter said the purchase of Rawlinna would see the company return to large-scale sheep and wool production. “Our owners, the Hands family, have held significant sheep production properties in the UK and we believe now is a good time to invest in Australia’s sheep and wool industry,” he said.
“Rawlinna represents an opportunity for us to re-enter the Australian sheep production space at scale and accelerate our ambition of building out a quality diversified portfolio by both geography and production type. We now have assets in cattle, goat, sheep and wool production, natural capital and over 20,000 hectares of cropping capacity,” he said.
“We have no intention of converting Rawlinna away from sheep production. We will aim to build on the legacy of Jumbuck Pastoral by further developing Rawlinna to increase its sheep and wool production capacity in the years to come,” he said.
Jumbuck Pastoral is one of the largest livestock production enterprises in Australia. Established in 1888, it is a family-owned company with vast landholdings throughout the country.
In the mid 1950s, Hugh MacLachlan was travelling from South Australia to Perth on the Indian Pacific when the train stopped at a remote siding called Rawlinna. He saw the siding had good quality underground water and, being a pastoralist, he could see the miles and miles of open saltbush, bluebush and grass plains.
He grew Rawlinna into the largest sheep station in Australia, occupying 1,046,323 hectares. The property’s renowned boundary exclusion fence spans some 400 km in length.
Jumbuck Pastoral continues to own a substantial portfolio of sheep and cattle stations throughout Australia. Jumbuck intends to grow that portfolio into the future and to remain one of the largest cattle and sheep producers in Australia.
CPC has a history in Australian agriculture dating back to 1879. In late 2020, the British-based Hands Family Office took full control of the business and since then it has grown locally and in Indonesia.
CPC owns and operates nine station aggregations in Australia and two feedlots in Indonesia. It runs 300,000 head of cattle, 45,000 goats and produces crops on more than 3.2m hectares of land.
It owns the iconic Isis Downs Station, which was one of Australia’s largest sheep stations.