Cattle approaching a holding yard on Millungera Station

FORTY years ago, in 1985, young cattleman Peter Hughes looked on with some fascination as he sat through a landmark property auction in Brisbane as pastoral giant CSR offloaded its extensive pastoral portfolio.

The ten choice northern grazing assets included Millungera Station north of Julia Creek – one of CSR Pastoral’s crown jewels – which sold under the hammer to Acton Land & Cattle Co for just over $7 million, including 25,000 cattle.

Scroll forward four decades to this month, and Hughes Grazing/Georgina Pastoral has just completed its acquisition of Millungera from Evan Acton, under a deal worth close to $180 million.

Rumours about the likely sale have circulated for six or eight weeks, with Beef Central being put off the scent earlier by marketing agents who told us at the time, “That’s news to us.”

However we can confirm this week that the deal is complete, including around 45,000 flatback crossbred cattle. Settlement will take place in early January.

It’s been an acquisitive year for Hughes Grazing/Georgina Pastoral Co, having also secured Central Western Queensland’s Taylors Plains for $66 million back in August.

Brisbane accountants Bentleys said it was bound by confidentiality agreements and could not comment on the sale. Vendor Evan Acton also declined to comment when approached by phone.

Earlier pre-sale estimates (speculative) suggested Millungera might make closer to $200 million, with closer to 50,000 Santa and Charbray cattle.

New owners Peter and Jane Hughes and family will use Millungera for both breeding and backgrounding, mostly employing Wagyu genetics which now have an enormous footprint across the company’s operations stretching from the NT’s Victoria River District across the Barkly region, and further east across Northwest and North Queensland.

Millungera, located on the Flinders River 130km North of Julia Creek, is one of the largest holdings in the immediate area, covering some 342,000ha. To give an appreciation of its size relative to much smaller neighbours, the property spans 110km north to south, and 106km east to west.

Surrounded by some of the largest cattle business operators in the nation, near neighbours include Dalgonally to the southwest; Canobie, Iffley and Wandoola to the northwest, and Saxby Downs to the east.

Representing large-scale, efficient cattle production, Millungera has been used for the past 40 years as the breeding nursery for owners and developers, the Acton family.

Evan Acton and his late brother, Graeme, bought the asset during the historic CSR property portfolio auction in 1985, ploughing millions into the country via water improvements, fencing, cattle handling infrastructure and internal roads, plus genetics, making the asset a highly-efficient calf factory.

Abundant, reliable water – both natural and artesian – was one of the key attributes raised by new owner Peter Hughes. Sources include 21 bores, 25 dams and extensive frontage to the Flinders River on the southwestern boundary and dissected by the Saxby River. Some of the waterholes within the river systems are permanent. The property is primarily watered with extensive water infrastructure comprising troughs, poly pipe, dams and bore drains.

Millungera boasts an operating history stretching back more than 160 years, making it one of the earliest established pastoral enterprises in the region.

Country types consist of a mixture ranging from good river frontages, open Mitchell and Flinders grass downs, soft forest, and small areas of gidgee:

• About 68,000ha or 49pc is sandy forest with areas of black soil plains, areas of gidgee scrub and better quality forest, grassed with black and white spear, kerosene and wire grasses. Some buffel grass has also spread throughout parts of this country.
• About 130,000h or 38pc is open to shaded black soil downs, lightly timbered with scattered whitewood. Heavily grassed with Mitchell, Flinders, Bluegrass and herbages in season.
• A further 26,000ha of country (8pc of the land area) is river frontages and channels to Flinders and Saxby Rivers.
• Timbered gidgee country on heavy grey/black clay soils accounts for the remaining 18,000ha, or 5pc of the land area, broken in areas with some bauhinia and open areas.

The primary sales channels targeted by the Actons included the Central and Southern Queensland grassfed and feeder steer markets, as well as beef processors in these regions that supply to the domestic and export boxed beef trade. The Actons did little business into the live export trade via Townsville or Darwin.

Bentleys offered Millungera for sale via an expressions of interest campaign back in late July. It’s understood the asset attracted strong corporate, institutional and private interest, from across Australia and overseas.

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Hughes family

Peter and Jane Hughes and family’s Georgina Pastoral Co and Hughes Pastoral Group, are one of the world’s largest Wagyu producers, managing about four million hectares of country across Queensland, New South Wales and the Northern Territory.

Headquartered at the 140,000ha Tierawoomba near Nebo in Central Queensland, the couple own the 12,000sq km Lake Nash on the Barkly Tablelands; the extensive Victoria River District cattle stations Riveren and Inverway spanning 550,000ha, bought for $100m; the showcase Central Queensland grazing properties Tumbar (including the adjacent Marsden) and Caldervale near Tambo and Keeroongooloo via Windorah in the Channel Country.

When the Hughes family in 2021 paid $215m on a walk-in walk-out basis (including 55,000 Brahman and crossbred cattle, of which 20,000 were breeders), for the 438,000ha Miranda Downs, north-west of Normanton in Queensland’s Gulf of Carpentaria, it became the largest single cattle property transaction in Australian history.

The family added 34,000ha Taylors Plains in Central Western Queensland earlier this year in a $66 million deal.