http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21498,25619391-951,00.htm...

http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21498,25619391-951,00.html?from=public_rss

Anthony Klan

June 11, 2009 07:47am

THREE giant cattle stations owned by failed agribusiness Great Southern will be auctioned next week in deals hoped to reap more than $200 million.

Receiver McGrath Nicol will offer Chudleigh Park and Wrotham Park stations in north Queensland, and Moola Bulla near Halls Creek in the Northern Territory, as Great Southern moves to repay hundreds of millions in debt.

Those deals are expected to prove a bellwether for northern markets in which several major properties remain unsold amid uncertainty in the global economy.

The 154,000ha Woodstock station near Richmond in north Queensland and the one million hectare NT Tipperary group of properties -- owned by prominent barrister Alan Myers QC -- have been unable to find buyers.

Adding further uncertainty for Great Southern is a pending class action by some of its investors who claim they have a right to some of the cattle offered for sale with the stations being auctioned by McGrath Nicol.

Less than four months before Great Southern's May collapse, about 3300 investors in the group were given now-worthless Great Southern shares in exchange for $88m worth of cattle across seven properties.

Litigation funder IMF has said that exchange -- dubbed Project Transfer, intended to provide a struggling Great Southern with a cash injection -- was void because many investors had not approved the swap.

"There is a group of people saying they lost their interest in these (cattle) projects through an invalid resolution and want those interests back," IMF director Hugh McLernon said.

"Anyone selling those properties should keep that in mind."

McGrath Nicol declined to comment yesterday on the proposed class action.

Cattle property valuer Denis Schy, an associate director of Herron Todd White Townsville, said the 2009 sales season had begun with a whimper.

"The selling season has started late this year with few properties on the market and very little has sold," Mr Schy said. "I don't think everyone is walking around all doom and gloom but next week will be a real test of confidence in the market."

Despite the sluggish market, there had been healthy interest in the Great Southern properties, with many prospective buyers attracted by the forced sales.

That interest, mainly from large family-owned grazing companies and some national and international corporations, meant the properties were unlikely to be sold at a substantial loss to book values.

"While we really don't know what the result is going to be I am not predicting any great decline in values," Mr Schy said.

The 596,000ha Wrotham Park station, about 300km west of Cairns, is to be sold with about 500,000 cattle.

The company bought the station and an undisclosed number of cattle from listed agricultural behemoth AAco for $53.5m in mid-2006.

On the station is Wrotham Park Lodge, a tourism asset the land for which Great Southern leases to listed property giant GPT Group.