HIGHLY regarded Western Australian grazing property Joanna
Plains has changed hands after private negotiations, for an undisclosed sum.
Carpenter International sold the 9500ha property, located
near Cataby, 140km north of Perth, to a newly-formed joint venture involving
two stakeholders.
>New owner, the Central Agri Group, represents a
partnership between Lawsons Angus, Australia’s largest Angus beef seed-stock
producer; and Shark Lake Food Group, the operator of the export lamb and beef
abattoir near Esperance.
Victorian-based Lawsons has had a long-standing bull
breeding and marketing business in Western Australia, with Harry Lawson and
wife Ruth earlier spending three years in the west, developing the enterprise.
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The buyers say they plan to complete a partially-built
abattoir on the site, ‘in due course’.
The new business aims to create a world-class integrated
beef supply business at an attractive time in the beef economic cycle, joint
venture spokesman Harry Lawson said.
Carpenter Beef general manager John Berkefeld will head up
the new group, which has been formed to expand the integrated supply chain of
high quality Angus and Wagyu brands into global markets.
“The new Central Agri business model will create the
integrated seed-stock and breeding company that we need to secure supply for
our export Angus programs,” Mr Berkefeld said.
“Lawsons Angus has been our major genetics supplier for
twenty years so it really isn’t a major change to our strategy,” he said. “Our
integration into Central Agri Group will enable us to expand the business
significantly and better serve Lawsons Angus customers in WA and on the East
coast.”
“This is a great result for Carpenter Beef and WA
agriculture in general,” Mr Berkefeld said.
“Our Japanese customers are looking to increase the volume
of high quality grain fed Angus, and we wanted to secure a supply of cattle
with the right genetics to fit that market. For a long time our company has
recognized the value of Lawsons Angus genetics and the consistency in producing
a high quality product.”
“Our Japanese customers want to open the box and find the
same eating quality every time. This is only possible with a long-term
disciplined approach to every part of the supply chain starting with the
genetics.”
The Joanna Plains farm at Cataby will continue to be used as
a custom feedlot for northern producers as well as a facility for finishing
cattle to be slaughtered at the Shark Lake abattoir. The feedlot has in the
past fed up to 13,000 head.
The 10,000 head backgrounding facility will be expanded to
include a Lawsons Angus Bull Unit and Research
Centre.
Lawsons Angus head Harry Lawson said the Joanna Plains sale
represented a “once in a lifetime opportunity.”
“We are excited to be part of a dynamic fully-integrated
breeding company. The facility we have at Joanna Plains is a similar concept to
that used by our US partners, Gardiner Angus Ranch,” he said in a statement.
Gardiner Ranch, one of the largest US seedstock suppliers,
also operates a large commercial cattle business built around progeny buyback
schemes among co-operator breeders using Gardiner Ranch genetics.
“Central Agri Group will offer our clients in the East and
the West an opportunity to work with the end-customer and see the value of
their genetics in a transparent way,” Mr Lawson said.
“Having a fully traceable supply chain including genetics
puts us in a truly unique position,” he said.
The sale comes after years of speculation about the future
of the 8700ha grazing property near Cataby, where construction of a
boutique-scale abattoir stopped in 2007 after owner Ric Stowe’s Business Empire
collapsed.
With Central Agri’s ‘multimillion-dollar cash injection’,
the property is likely to boast a 400-head-a day abattoir, feedlots and prime
grazing land.
