CHINESE investment company Genius Link Asset Management is set to trump rival Shanghai Pengxin's $350 million bid for S. Kidman & Co as early as Thursday.
As revealed by The Australian Financial Review's Street Talk Online, it's understood GLAM, which already owns and operates agricultural assets in Australia, is likely to directly approach Kidman's owners.
GLAM's Australian agribusiness portfolio includes Riverina Oils & Bio Energy, which is the country's second biggest oilseed crushing and refining operation, and TreeTops Plantations, Australia's largest table olive plantation with 120,000 olive trees.
Riverina Oils is spending $135 million to expand its operations.
It is understood GLAM is pursuing joint bidding discussions with local cattle operators.
Kidman is Australia's biggest private landholder and operates 10 cattle stations, a stud farm, and feedlot covering more than 100,000 square kilometres.
The cattle group's adviser, Ernst & Young, had informed bidders that it had entered a period of exclusivity with a bidder, understood to be Pengxin, as revealed by Street Talk Online on Sunday. EY confirmed last week that the sale had been delayed by the regulatory process.
Pengxin has struggled to get regulatory approvals in the past for deals in New Zealand. Interestingly, sources close to Pengxin said the company was likely to reconsider its offer for Kidman in light of GLAM's resurgence.
The Kidman deal would require the blessing of the Foreign Investment Review Board, and foreign acquisitions of agricultural land have proven a sensitive issue for the Liberal-National coalition.
But the flurry of foreign interest in Australian agribusiness assets is not slowing down and as doubts grow about Pengxin's ability to close the deal, a range of other suitors, including GLAM, are poised to strike.
China's Ningbo Xianfeng and Rifa Australia are also understood to be watching the process closely.
Free trade agreements with Japan, China and South Korea, the reopening of the live cattle trade with Indonesia and a live cattle deal with China, are important tailwinds for the red meat sector.
Mega-rich locals and foreigners, including Andrew Forrest, Kerry Stokes, Romeo Roxas and Xingfa Ma have been snapping up pastoral land.
Corporates including Indonesia's Santori and China's Fucheng Group have bought Australian cattle stations.
The processing sector has also been hot with the mammoth $1.45 billion takeover of Primo Smallgoods by Brazil's JBS, while British billionaire Joe Lewis, whose investment company owns 32 per cent of AACo, has been AACo's main backer during construction of its Darwin abattoir.
The upcoming float of cattle exporter Wellard rounds out a sector red hot with corporate activity as investors rush to get exposure to Asia's booming demand for premium, safe, protein.
