Report coming out on AFR, I reckon it is good writing, I believe...

Report coming out on AFR, I reckon it is good writing, I believe SP will be up. Obviously the market behave so wired these days as if someone need to accumulate more at lower cost or the shorters need to exit at these cost before it burns, nevertheless, the short report will tell in next couple days.


The Australian Agricultural Company's rural property portfolio has risen in value by almost twice that of Sydney house prices in the last year, with its huge cattle stations having gained 15.8 per cent.

The independent valuations conducted by CBRE have surprised industry participants and could well influence the bidding prices on Australia's other big cattle station owner S. Kidman & Co which has been up for sale for almost 12 months.
AAco said the revaluation – an annual occurrence – increased the carrying value of the company's land and buildings to $615 million at March 2016 from $531 million at March 2015. The rise reflected some big prices paid for rural properties including the $100 million purchase of Macquarie Group's Walhallow Station by billionaire Brett Blundy, a Chinese purchase of Woolagarang Station for $47 million and Australian Country Choice purchase of Barkly Downs for more than $60 million.
AACo, which owns 18 cattle stations covering about 6.4 million hectares, had a net tangible asset backing of $1.53 per share as of September last year. The company said on Monday that the revaluation added 11 cents to the NTA bringing it to $1.64. However the market did not respond with the share price moving up 1¢ to $1.25.

The founder of valuation service Herron Todd White, Kerry Herron said he was sceptical about the result.
"I would suspect it is a little optimistic," Mr Herron said, "It's an increase I would personally doubt at this time."
"Yes cattle prices have gone up but generally speaking property sales volume usually picks up way ahead of value and you still have to mop up a lot of the properties on the market first."
He said if the company's values had been valued too harshly the year before or if overseas interest in S. Kidman & Co had been factored in then there could be some higher values attributed.  

National head of agribusiness at valuation group Opteon, Martin Tremain said the result, while high, was believable.
"The 15.8 per cent doesn't seem that unrealistic to be honest. There has been some seriously significant increases in prime land and the northern cattle stations is showing some big increases," Mr Tremain said.
The Foreign Investment Review Board last week reported Chinese investors planned to put $2.5 billion into agriculture compared to just $32 million the year before. Major cattle company, Macquarie Group-operated Paraway Pastoral reported a record $67 million profit on Monday but showed only a small increase in property values. However it did make a $14 million profit on the sale of its Walhallow station for $100 million. Other major groups to conduct valuations will include Consolidated Pastoral and the North Australian Pastoral Company.

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