Profits dive but cattle assets soar at Gina Rinehart’s Australian Outback Beef

Profit from billionaire Gina Rinehart and her Chinese business partner’s vast Australian Outback Beef empire more than halved to $11.5 million last financial year, new filings to the corporate watchdog have revealed. But a silver lining for 2020-21 was a big jump in the value of their cattle assets. Net profit for the year to June 30 was down from $27.8m in the previous year, according to filings with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. Revenue was $66.7m, down from $73.8m. Mrs Rinehart, in partnership with Chinese real estate conglomerate Shanghai Cred, purchased eight million hectares of cattle grazing properties from S Kidman & Co for $386.5m in 2016. Shanghai Cred holds a 33 per cent stake. The report recorded total assets as $386.8m, similar to the previous year. Total liabilities were just $18m, roughly on par with a year earlier. Cattle assets rose significantly, with AOB saying its cattle were worth $157.6m last financial year, compared to $108.6m a year earlier. The increase reflected a general trend across the industry of retaining livestock and restocking following the end of drought-like conditions in many pastoral areas. During the year the group started the process to offload its Ruby Plains and Sturt Creek properties in the Kimberley but contracts for the sale to prominent Alice Springs pastoralist Viv Oldfield for a rumoured $70m were agreed after the end of the financial year. Mr Oldfield is also buying the group’s Macumba and Innamincka stations in South Australia’s north-east for an undisclosed sum. The filings said the decision to sell was made subsequent to the end of the financial year. Despite the sales, the financial results noted a commitment by AOB that it intended to “continue to develop its pastoral properties, and continue breeding, fattening, processing and selling commercial beef cattle”. The group reported it paid $4.95m in tax, down from $11.83m last financial. Directors did not recommend a dividend be paid. Mrs Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting — the umbrella group for the magnate’s mining and agricultural assets — was contacted for comment.