Mr Buntine, whose wealth is estimated at $350m by BRW magazine, managed the pastoral herd of collapsed Great Southern, which went into receivership in May owing $800m.

Mr Buntine has for many years been a buyer rather than a seller of land, buying up cattle country around Australia including grazier Peter Sherwin’s Alroy Downs Station in the Northern Territory last year for about $70m.

He has amassed more than 2.8 million hectares across the Kimberley, Northern Territory and Queensland, with his portfolio including one of the largest single aggregations in the country, the Bedford Downs and

Lansdowne properties in Western Australia.

Much of Mr Buntine’s property was leased to Great Southern for its managed cattle investment schemes.

Mr Buntine is the brother-in-law of Great Southern’s general manager of cattle, David McLeod.

They are the sole directors and shareholders of Leichhardt Pastoral, which received payments from Great Southern for property selection and consulting.

However, Great Southern has had to sell its cattle assets, leaving Mr Buntine to fill the void left by the company on several of his properties.

He has chosen to sell some of the properties, including the 599,400ha station Tobermorey in the Northern Territory, which was recently passed in on an auctioneer’s bid of $11m, and the 197,000ha Linda Downs

pastoral holding in far west Queensland, which was passed in at auction last month for

$5m.

Last Friday, Mr Buntine brought three properties covering 70,000ha of prime grazing country in Blackall to auction.

He bought them for about $30m earlier this decade.

Inverness, covering about 22,000ha, was bought by dairy farmers Len and Margaret Peel, from North Hampton Downs.

The station, considered a trophy property in the district, was sold without cattle, but the new owners are looking to continue the grazing operation.

The agent for the properties, Ray White’s Andrew Adcock, said the sales result had been positive.

“From an industry perspective, it is a good result,” he said.

“Quality properties are still attracting good interest in the marketplace.

“There were 17 inspections on this property and five registered bidders.”

Mr Buntine bought more than 17,000ha of the Inverness freehold for $10m in 2006.

The two other properties on offer were the 13,100ha Allambie, which he bought in 2007 for $6.1m, and the 36,900ha Malvern Hills, bought for $14.5m in 2006.

Both were passed in at auction.