Cows on the block to recoup Nant funds

LIQUIDATORS are considering selling up to 261 cattle abandoned at a grazing property as entrepreneur Keith Batt’s businesses collapse.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has obtained court orders to appoint financial services heavyweight Deloitte as provisional liquidators to key Nangus companies, which were managing the livestock.

Investors, inspired by Mr Batt’s Nant whisky enterprises, had stumped up thousands of dollars for cattle.

One package offered 10 black angus breeding cows for $30,000 with a promise that the Nant cattle operation, now called Nangus, would buy them back for about $47,000 five years later.

The cattle scheme, like the Nant whisky investment scheme, unravelled and investors have been chasing their stock. The cows have been moved around Queensland as agistment fees were not paid.

They are currently thought to be at Pikedale Station, about 150km south west of Toowoomba.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission had been implored over many months by worried whisky and cattle investors to act.

It obtained orders in the Queensland Supreme Court earlier this month to have Richard Hughes and David Orr of Deloitte appointed as provisional liquidators to Nangus Holdings Group, Nangus Holdings and Nangus Grazing Company.

ASIC said it applied for and obtained the orders as part of an ongoing investigation into the Nangus Group.

“The orders were sought by ASIC due to concerns about the solvency and lack of man- agement of the companies,” the commission said in a statement. “In particular, ASIC has concerns about a herd of about 261 head of cattle abandoned by company management.”

ASIC said Mr Batt, who is based in Brisbane, and his wife, Margaret, “the individuals responsible for the creation and management of the companies, are now both personally bankrupt, disqualifying them from managing a corporation”.