Joe Lewis, the main shareholder of Australian Agriculture, a company that owns about 1 per cent of the Australia’s land mass, has pleaded guilty in a US court to insider trading.
US-based Washington State Investment Board has committed another $A350 million to Queensland-based farm investor Laguna Bay Pastoral Company.
Joe Lewis, the owner of football team Tottenham Hotspur, is the ultimate owner of the AA Trust, which has just converted 59 of 160 Convertible Notes into fully paid ordinary shares in AACo.
A landmark agreement in the Kimberley is close to being sealed in which Australia's largest cattle corporation will lease vast tracts of land from their Aboriginal owners in return for providing jobs, training and a share of profits in the cattle business.
Outspoken entrepreneur and aviator Dick Smith has bought $1 million worth of shares in Australian Agricultural Co (AAco) - Australia's second-largest landholder - because he doesn't want to sound hypocritical when he campaigns against foreign ownership of farms.
"We want to make agriculture sexy," says the head of Macquaraie's Retail Agribuiness operation.
Fears that faceless corporations and international investors would become the new barons of the Australian bush have proved to be unfounded
The debate over foreign investment is set to expand from the mining industry to agriculture as overseas investors pour billions of dollars into Australian rural properties considered by some to be strategic national assets.
UAE food processing and poultry group Iffco has justifiably ruffled some feathers in Australia. Earlier this year, Iffco acquired a 14.99 per cent stake in Australian Agricultural Company (AAC) from Futuris Corporation for AU$64.7 million (Dh171.6m). AAC is the largest beef cattle company in Australia, running around 500,000 beef cattle on 21 cattle stations comprising 8.2 million hectares.
