Brahman cattle in a set of yards on Benmara

BENMARA Station, a large breeding property on the Northern Territory’s Barkly Tableland, has reportedly been sold to members of the extended Harris family, based at Mungindi QLD, which owns and operate Gogo Station near Fitzroy Crossing in Western Australia.

A large uplift of cattle from Gogo to Benmara has already taken place, Beef Central has been told, confirming that delivery has been completed.

Reliable sources suggest a sale price close to $1200 a beast area for the property, which runs more than 10,000 cattle. If the figure is accurate, it values the holding at around $12 million.

Benmara was listed privately last year through CBRE by vendors the Holt family, who have owned the property since 1995. The Holts have other cattle assets in the NT and North Queensland.

A mixture of open Barkly downs country and open forest, Benmara covers about 450,000 hectares east of Cresswell and Newcastle Waters towards the Queensland border.

The buyers are several members of the Harris family, originally graingrowers from NSW. Several family members bought Gogo Station in 1989. They have since trialled grain and forage sorghum crops, both dryland and irrigated, on the Fitzroy Crossing holding. The family members financially involved in Benmara differ somewhat from those involved in Gogo, Beef Central is told.

Benmara is well located to service both the northern live export market, as well as processing works on the eastern seaboard.

Stock water infrastructure includes 27 dams, 18 bores (an additional 12 bores which are currently not operational) and numerous watercourses.

The property has high quality structure and ancillary improvements, and there is significant scope to further develop the landholding through additional fencing and waters.

Agent was Geoff Warriner from CBRE.

Portland Downs, Cotswald fail to sell

Meanwhile, historic Portland Downs near Ifracombe in central western Queensland failed to sell at auction yesterday.

Dutch-owned Portland Downs and Cotswald. a second property held by the same owner were passed on floor bids at an Elders auction in Brisbane.

Portland, covering 100,000ha of mostly downs country between Isisford and Ilfracombe, was passed in on a bid of $10 million, while Cotswald, a 7400ha intensively developed Condamine property used to background cattle from Portland, was passed in for $10 million.

Portland had been running 6000 breeding cattle in recent years. It is perhaps best known as a historic woolgrowing property, having run 60,000-plus sheep in its heyday.

Cotswald features heavy Condamine River black soils to brigalow/belah country and has been used to background more than 5000 cattle on an annual basis. It features a 1500ML water licence and five centre pivot irrigators covering 320ha. A feedlot is also under construction.

Seven parties registered to bid at the auctions. Negotiations on both properties are continuing, Elders agent Dick Allpass said.