The Land Report

Spring 2017

The Magazine of the American Landowner is an essential guide for investors, landowners, and those interested in buying or selling land. The award-winning quarterly is known for its annual survey of America's largest landowners, The Land Report 100.

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S P R I N G 2 0 1 7 | The LandReport 85 LANDREPORT.COM JASON REED / REUTERS S ome might label it hyperbole to credit a collection of outback cattle stations with strategic national interest. The Australian Treasurer, Scott Morrison, is not among their number. Not only does S. Kidman & Co control almost 30,000 square miles of land, but it turns out that its largest holding, South Australia's 6,000,000-acre Anna Creek Station, is located within a testing ground operated by the Royal Australian Air Force known as the Woomera Test Range. This security interest was one of several reasons why Shanghai-based Pengxin's initial bid of A$350 million (US$270 million) in late 2015 was rejected on security grounds. In 2016, Pengxin returned to the table with yet another bid. Pengxin's second run at S. Kidman proved to be far more astute. Not only did it exclude Anna Creek, but it included a Brisbane-based minority partner, Australian Rural Capital. That proved good enough for the Kidman Group board, which gave a thumbs-up to an A$370 million offer (US$285 million). It too was rejected by Canberra. "Given the size and significance of the Kidman portfolio, I am concerned that the acquisition of an 80 percent interest in S. Kidman and Co Limited by Dakang Australia Holdings may be contrary to the national interest," Morrison said. Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce seconded the sentiment. "My preference always is for the Australian asset to be owned by mums and dads of Australia," Joyce said. The stage was set for a local hero. Make that a heroine. Gina Rinehart's fortune is pegged in the tens of billions. In the 1950s, her father, Lang Hancock, discovered the world's largest deposit of iron while traveling through an isolated section of Western Australia's Pilbara region. More than a decade passed before Hancock could stake his claim to this mother lode. Once the government gave its approval, Hancock Prospecting began cashing multi- million-dollar royalty checks that arrive to this day through an operating agreement with Rio Tinto. The company's ore has literally built modern China. Following Hancock's death, his daughter Gina became chair of the family enterprise. Since then, she has directed a sizeable portion of the family fortune into land. The daughter of Lang Hancock (1909–1992), Gina Rinehart, 63, succeeded her father as chairman of Hancock Prospecting and has since acquired numerous cattle stations.

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