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Westholme Cancels 2006 Bull Sale
The Australian Agricultural Company (AACo) has
purchased all the Westholme fullblood Wagyu Bulls currently in
preparation for the 2006 & 2007 Annual Bull sales. Further the AACo
has optioned all breeding cows, heifers, calves, embryos, semen &
intellectual property for purchase in the second half of 2006 after
calving and AI programmes have been completed.
B• For further details please read the following
press releases issued by AACo and Westholme:-
C• A selection of newspaper
articles from March 27, 28 2006:-
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Aaco steaks $1m on wagyu bulls
By PETER GOSNELL
March 28, 2006
BURGEONING demand for marbled meat
is driving major cattle businesses such as the Australian
Agricultural Company to deal with specialist producers of wagyu,
the tastiest beef on the planet.
Aaco, the biggest cattle producer
in the world, moved into the premium end of the steak market
yesterday, saying it would pay $1 million for the wagyu stud
bulls owned by former Asian expatriate and now Palm Beach
resident Chris Walker.
The bulls form the centrepiece of
Mr Walker's Westholme Wagyu Pty Ltd, which operates on a 1620ha
property at Tarana, west of Lithgow.
Aaco has also acquired an option
to buy Westholme's complete cattle breeding business.
Mr Walker, who spent 15 years in
Japan, said he became interested in wagyu for one reason. "Have
you ever eaten it?" the 66-year-old asked.
He said he would now concentrate
on breeding his wagyu bulls with angus cows to produce so-called
F1 (first class) beef.
"There's infinitely less work
involved in that business," he said. "It's a much less complex
business model, which at my age is very appealing."
Aaco announced it would purchase
the total bull herd for about $1 million, with the option to
acquire the balance of the assets for about $9 million.
Managing director and chief
executive Don MacKay said the acquisition was an opportunity for
the company to deliver an improvement in its key assets in land,
cattle, brands and people.
http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story/0,20281,18620821-5001024,00.html
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AAco acquires Wagyu beef
herd
March
27, 2006 - 4:59PM
The nation's biggest beef producer Australian
Agricultural Company Ltd (AAco) expects to triple output of
premium Wagyu beef with the acquisition of the full-blood Wagyu
bull herd of Westholme Wagyu Pty Ltd.
AAco has entered into a heads of agreement
with Westholme Wagyu, the world's largest full-blood herd
outside Japan, to buy its Wagyu bull herd and possibly acquire
its complete cattle breeding business in a deal worth $10
million.
The 182-year-old company will purchase the
total bull herd for about $1 million and has an option to
acquire the balance of the assets for about $9 million after
calving, weaning and re-mating is completed later in 2006.
Chief financial officer Stephen Toms said the
acquisition would help the company meet the demand for Wagyu
beef, a premium beef, which is highly sought after in
restaurants in Japan, Korea and the United States.
The company expects to lift Wagyu beef output
from 3,000 this year to 5,000 next year, and by nearly triple to
8,000 over time, by crossbreeding its standard cattle with the
full-blood Wagyu.
"With this acquisition we expect to triple
that (output) over time," Mr Toms said.
"Wagyu is one of the main products we sell,
and makes up 80 per cent of our branded beef products."
The price of Wagyu ranged from $3,000 to
$4,000 while a standard beef was about $1,000, he said.
AAco managing director and chief executive
officer Don MacKay said the purchase would boost the profile of
the company's branded beef products in domestic and overseas
markets.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2006/03/27/1143330979684.html
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Beef
producer set for wagyu cattle production
Monday, 27/03/2006
Australia's
biggest beef producer is set to take over the world's largest
breeder of wagyu cattle.
Wagyu beef
is renowned for its marbling and is highly prized in the
Japanese market.
The
Australian Agricultural Company has bought a bull herd
belonging to Ballarat(sic)-based Westholme Wagyu, regard as
the world's best outside Japan.
Managing
director Don Mackay says the company hopes to buy Westholme's
cows and calves, embryos and semen later this year.
"You
produce a higher quality beef, you produce beef products that
are worth considerably more value," he said.
"Clearly
you've got a higher cost of production and the animals that we
feed in our feedlot today are generally on feed for about a
year but those animals are worth a lot of money.
"As long as
you get the right performance from the right genetics.
"It's all
about marbling, it's as simple as that and if you've got the
right genetics to produce the right marbling, you can get the
value."
http://www.abc.net.au/rural/news/content/2006/s1601640.htm
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 BUSINESS
AACo rounds up $10m
beef herd
Teresa Ooi
March 28, 2006
THE world's largest
beef producer, Australian Agricultural Company, will buy up to
1000 head of top wagyu cattle from Westholme Wagyu - which has
the world's biggest wagyu herd outside Japan - in a deal worth
$10 million.
The transaction between two of the world's biggest beef players
sent AACo shares up 3c to $1.69.
AACo will initially acquire 130 full-blood
wagyu bulls from Westholme for $1 million, with the option to
get the rest of the 1000-strong herd and its cattle breeding
business, including cows, calves, embryos, semen and
intellectual property, for another $9 million. AACo chief
executive Don Mackay said the acquisition of Westholme wagyu
business was a "perfect fit" and strategic buy.
He said Westholme has the world's largest and
best-credentialled full-blood herd outside Japan. It operates
the country's premier Wagyu business. "AACo's core expertise is
in the breeding, fattening, lot feeding and marketing of cattle
and beef. "This acquisition will allow AACo to breed its own
full-blood and cross-bred wagyu herds, thereby achieving greater
scale and capturing additional margin."
Mr Mackay, who described wagyu as the Versace
brand of beef, said there was a growing appetite for Wagyu in
Asia, America and Australia. The meat is sold for more than
$US120 ($170) a kilo in Japan and about $100 a kilo at David
Jones food hall.
AACo already exports wagyu beef to Japan, the
US, Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong. Out of a total $180 million
in cattle sales last year, wagyu made up $20 million. The
company has plans to expand its wagyu business to about 25,000
head of prime wagyu cattle over the next five years.
Westholme's founder, Chris Walker, 67, said he
had mixed feeling about getting out of the "highly intensive"
wagyu breeding business. "After what I went through building up
the business, there are some mixed feelings. "I'm in my late 60s
and breeding wagyu cattle is a very complex, hands-on business.
"But I'm very pleased that AACo, a great Australian company, is
buying my business and I can now look forward to a more
leisurely life."
Mr Walker has no plans to sell his 2023ha
Westholme farm close to Tarana in the Blue Mountains, although
he plans to spend more time in Sydney.
It took the former Tokyo-based head of music
retailer HMV four years of negotiations before he convinced the
Japanese authorities to allow the export of 87 full-blood wagyu
cattle, including three bulls, from Japan to the US before the
herd finally arrived in Australia.
"With Japan having one of the highest meat
prices in the world, I worked on the business model to breed top
quality wagyu beef in Australia with cattle imported from Japan
and eventually exporting the cattle back to Japan," he said.
For the last few years, he ran an exclusive
Japanese export business, selling about 1000 head of wagyu
cattle to Japan a year with an annual turnover of about $2
million.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,18624901%255E643,00.html
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Westholme Wagyu founder, Chris Walker, on his
Tarana property with purebred (sic) Wagyu bulls included in the
record $10 million herd sale to the Australian Agricultural
Company.
Wagyu
herd’s $10m tag
By Jon Condon
THE world's biggest seed-stock herd transaction was completed
this week with the Australian Agricultural Company (AACo)
announcing it would buy the genetic assets of major Wagyu
breeders, Chris and Lyn Walker, for $10 million.
The purchase of the Walkers' Central Tablelands Westholme herd
will be the launch pad for AACo to expand its Wagyu breeding
operations, with the intention to generate up to 17,000
company-bred Wagyu cattle each year within five years, on top of
the 8000 bought-in Wagyu it already feeds.
The $10m deal dwarfs all other Australian seedstock herd
dispersals staged in the past 10 years, including those from
Cungelella, King Ranch and Western Grazing.
Almost 90 NSW breeders took what may have been one of their
last chances to see the herd locally when the property at Tarana,
between Bathurst and Lithgow, opened as part of Southern Beef Week
last Saturday. "Sold out" signs referring to the stud's planned
April sale, now cancelled, were the only indication the genetics
would head north.
The two-stage sale will start with 130 full-blood bulls for $1
million, followed by 750 full-blood breeding females, calves,
embryos, 170,000 straws of semen (valued at about $3m, alone) and
intellectual property, which will change hands for an additional
$9m after July 1.
While there are large crossbred Wagyu herds elsewhere in the
country, the Westholme enterprise is the largest fullblood Wagyu
breeding herd in Australia by a considerable margin, and the
second largest in the world, after a herd in Japan.
Through his long-term business connections with Japan, Mr
Walker secured prized Fujiyoshi, Kedaka and Tajima full-blood
Japanese Wagyu strains of cattle in the mid-1990s that have proven
to be elite performers for both marbling performance and growth
rates.
At last year's Westholme bull sale, buyers from across
Australia paid an average of $9293 for 42 bulls, the second
highest sale average ever achieved in this country. Mr Walker said
while he still had a passion for breeding Wagyu cattle, he was now
close to 70, and looking forward to a more "leisurely life".
AACo managing director, Don Mackay, said the company was likely
to make the Westholme genetics available to other Wagyu producers
in future - in particular under co-operative contract breeding
arrangements. "Outside of Japan, there is nothing else like these
Westholme cattle, in terms of their genetic quality or the size of
the herd, anywhere in the world," he said.
The decision by AACo to embark on large-scale breeding fills an
important gap in its Wagyu production model, bringing it more in
line with the vertically integrated operation of its conventional
beef programs. The Westholme fullblood cattle will go north to "Wylarah",
near Surat in southern Queensland.
First-cross Wagyu cattle, using high quality Santa/Angus dams,
will be based in a terminal crossbreeding program at AACo's Carrum
Station, south of Julia Creek, in north-west Queensland.
AACo sees the Wagyu's future as that of a high-value flagship
product for the Australian beef industry. "AACo's biggest volume
Wagyu customer in recent months has been the US, and the market
continues to diversify away from its traditional export
destination in Japan," Mr Mackay said.
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