WESTERN Australian pastoralist and businessman Brent Smoothy has emerged as the buyer of Charlie and Kaye Wilson's Dingo property Karamarra.
The highly productive 7230 hectare (17,866 acre) property located on the Mackenzie River at Dingo was sold for an undisclosed figure prior to its scheduled September 25 auction. However, pre-auction chatter had the property in the $25-$30 million range.
Mr Smoothy holds a number of WA pastoral holdings in Western Australia including the Pilbara property Hillside.
He is also the founder of ASX listed fertiliser mining company Kalium Lakes. Kalium Lakes is on track to produce Australia's first sulphate of potash mine.
Located on the Mackenzie River at Dingo, Karamarra has been developed as three separate businesses: Irrigation, broadacre farming and cattle.
The property comprises of principally flooded alluvial brigalow and coolibah flats with a 7km frontage to the Mackenzie River. From the floodplain, the country rises to gentle slopes and forest areas interspersed with escarpments. There are red tablelands on the western and northern boundary.
The floodplain covers about 4600ha. There is currently 380ha of furrow irrigation, 1350ha of broadacre cultivation with the balance planted to leucaena, buffel, floren blue grass and bambatsi for cattle.
There is about 800ha of developed brigalow scrub country, with two 96ha Reinke centre pivots. One pivot waters leucaena and improved pastures. The other pivot has been prepared for leucaena.
Karamarra is described as having above average alluvial soils capable of producing 10-12 bales/ha of cotton on the irrigated area and 5t/ha of cereal crops on the dryland farming area.
Some 200ha of cotton is included in the sale. There are forward contracts for 1500 bales providing a significant potential cash flow in early 2020.
The certified organic cattle operation has a carrying capacity of about 1800 adult equivalents.
There is a 900ML storage for pumped water as well as capturing overland flow. An additional 2200ML of water allocations is available to purchase.
The large, modern homestead overlooks the property. There are also two other houses, machinery sheds, a workshop, hay shed, 3500 tonnes of silo storage, fuel tank, and a separate worker's camp. A laneway system services the steel cattle yards.
The marketing of Karamarra was handled by Richard Brosnan from Ray White Rural.