Shanghai Pengxin knocked back in Australia

Australia’s federal treasurer has blocked Shanghai Pengxin’s attempted purchase of vast cattle stations across the Tasman, weeks after the Chinese company’s bid for Lochinver Station near Taupo was rejected by the New Zealand government.

Shanghai Pengxin was in exclusive talks to buy Australian farming company S Kidman & Co, the country’s largest landowner, with 10 cattle stations covering 101,411 sq km across four states, for a price reportedly around $A350 million ($384m).

But in a statement today treasurer Scott Morrison said the sale of Kidman to a foreign buyer would not be in the national interest and he would not authorise the deal.

He said one of Kidman’s properties, Anna Creek, was the largest single property in Australia and half its lease was in the Woomera Prohibited Area weapons testing range.

The range made “a unique and sensitive contribution to Australia's national defence and it is not unusual for governments to restrict access to sensitive areas on national security grounds,” he said.

“Given the size and significance of the total portfolio of Kidman properties along with the national security issues around access to the WPA, I have determined, after taking advice from the Foreign Investment Review Board, that it would be contrary to Australia's national interest for a foreign person to acquire S. Kidman and Co. in its current form.”

Kidman & Co is owned by the family descendants of its founder Sir Sidney Kidman, a former drover from South Australia who earned the nickname The Cattle King.

Other bidders for the properties reportedly included wealthy Australians Robert Champion de Crespigny, Hugh Morgan and the Baillieu family, owners of one of Victoria’s largest sheep and cattle stations.

In September New Zealand government ministers Paula Bennett and Louise Upston rejected Shanghai Pengxin’s application to buy Lochinver Station near Taupo for $88m.

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