TWO Top End cattle stations expected to fetch more than $100 million have come onto the market, bringing almost 15 per cent of the available pastoral land in the Northern Territory up for sale.
Wallco International's one million-hectare Killarney aggregation and the Underwood family's 722,000ha Bunda/Riveren aggregation have been offered.
Each property is likely to be sold for more than $50m, but valuers say it will be difficult to know for sure given the supply/demand equation.
A dearth of transactions since the 2009 takeover of Consolidated Pastoral by British private equity group Terra Firma has left valuers struggling to work out how far values have slipped since boom-time prices of 2008.
However, cattle baron Sterling Buntine sold his Amburla Station at a respectable value last week, giving vendors some hope.
Mr Buntine, whose wealth is estimated by BRW's Rich List at $385m, sold the station just outside Alice Springs last week for $6m to local cattleman Tony Davies.
The hotchpotch of sales in the past 12 months includes cattle baron Peter Hughes' purchase of Argadargada Station for $5m, and pearl producer the Paspaley family's acquisition of Dry River Station for $5.4m.
Selling the Killarney and Bunda properties in conjunction with Colliers International, Territory Rural's Andrew Gray said finding the new benchmark in values would be difficult.
"The NT pastoral property market will find a new level from the values created during the bull run of acquisitions through 2006 to 2008, but to date the market has struggled to find that new level," Mr Gray said.
Herron Todd White valuer Frank Peacock said there were mixed signals in the market, for which there are about 220 pastoral properties with 30 of them up for sale.
"It's a buyers' market, but there is a lack of confidence with vendors and buyers about where exactly the bottom is at the moment.
"Nobody looks as though they are really pushed to sell and buyers still have difficulty getting finance," he said.
Contributing further to the confusion were the mixed messages on the live export market. Tighter weight restrictions on live exports to Indonesia have had an impact on confidence in the cattle market, especially in the Northern Territory, where almost all cattle produced are targeted at the live export trade.
While the Indonesian government wants beef self-sufficiency by 2014, the Indonesian Importers Association said recently the government had grossly overestimated the domestic cattle population, which could bode well for NT.
Wallco International, one of the largest cattle exporters in Australia, will offer 47,000 head of cattle with its Killarney aggregation.
The Underwood family will offer about 40,000 head of cattle with its Bunda/Riveren aggregation.
Both vendors' properties have extensive infrastructure and receive high rainfall, however they compete with many other highly developed cattle stations on the market, such as the nearby Tipperary Station owned by barrister Allan Myers.
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