Rinehart buys 2 more cattle properties

SYDNEY: Australia’s richest woman Gina Rinehart has expanded her cattle business, buying two cattle properties in the country’s north, as the billionaire seeks to profit from the Asia’s fast-growing food market.

The cattle properties, located southwest of the town of Katherine in the Northern Territory, were bought from one of Indonesia’s largest importers of cattle, Japfa, said the Rinehart-controlled Hancock Prospecting Pty Ltd.

The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“I am excited about the acquisition of these two cattle properties and to be investing in Australia, particularly in the Northern Territory,” said Rinehart yesterday.

“I am passionate about our agricultural industry and developing Northern Australia,” she said.

The combined purchase of 550,000ha and 40,000 head of cattle marks the latest agricultural acquisition from the mining magnet after Rinehart bought a Western Australia cattle station last year.

Rinehart is one of a handful of mining magnets that have shown increasing appetite for Australian agriculture assets amid a transition of the country’s economy — the socalled “mining to dining boom”.

Australia has exported record amounts of beef to China over the last three years, while a deal to sell live cattle to the Asian market signed last year is expected to be lucrative.