Gina Rinehart's daring cattle station sell off succeeds

The final two pieces of the enormous offering, Riveren and Invermay in the Northern Territory, are believed to be close to settlement for a reported $100 million to the Hughes family's Hughes and Georgina pastoral companies.

Peter and Jane Hughes already have extensive organic beef herds across the Barkly region, central and south western Queensland.

Hughes Pastoral Company is headquartered at the family station Tierawoomba at Nebo, west of Mackay.

In June last year, Stanbroke Pastoral Company sold its Queensland Gulf Country station Miranda Downs to Hughes Pastoral Group for $180m.

It is just over a year since Elders Ltd agents took on Rinehart's strategic move to sell off seven big stations in Western Australia and the Territory covering some 1.876 million hectares.

It is believed to be the single biggest agricultural portfolio ever to be offered up in Australia.

The total asking price was believed to be around $300 million, which it appears the massive sale achieved.

It is believe vast herds of cattle were included in many of the land deals.

South Australia's Innamincka and Macumba stations were also sold to Crown Point Pastoral which was outside the original sale offering.

The sale has hardly dented Ms Rinehart's pastoral ambitions, as she still owns cattle country across eight million hectares.

She acquired the enormous land portfolio in rapid time spurred on by Hancock Prospecting's purchase of S. Kidman and Company cattle properties for $386.5 million in a joint venture with Chinese partner Shanghai CRED back in 2016.

Riveren and Inverway Stations, in the Victoria River District, were bought from JAPFA Santori, an Indonesian company, in 2016.

The stations included in the sale were:

Several of the stations neighbour each other and are all highly regarded beef production properties with rich histories in the Australian beef industry.

Here's how we tracked those sales:

Phoenix Park NT 3443ha (Crown Point Pastoral - Viv Oldfield and Costello families NT).

Aroona Station NT 147,510ha (DiGiorio family SA)

Willeroo NT 171,000ha (Brett Cattle Co. NT).

Riveren and Inverway NT 555,400ha (Peter and Jane Hughes Qld, NT)

Nerrima WA 203,142ha (Emmanuel family WA).

Ruby Plains and Sturt Creek WA 796,134ha (Crown Point Pastoral - Emmanuel family, Viv Oldfield NT).

Agents says Hancock Agriculture has spent big on improving the properties after they were bought.

The stations have extra water storage and distribution infrastructure, innovative technology and digital communication networks.

The vast cattle herds have been improved with the lowering of the age profile of the breeder herd.

"With this development process now significantly advanced or completed, Hancock Agriculture is now looking to complete its investment cycle and focus on other areas of growth in its agricultural operations," Elders' general manager real estate Tom Russo said when the sale was announced.

"This represents a rare opportunity to acquire a strategically constructed portfolio of assets at scale during a period of unprecedented growth in demand for quality Australian protein."

Pastoral conditions across the north have rarely been better.

The stations were sold through a staged expression of interest process.

Hancock Agriculture intends to retain and grow its remaining operations in Queensland, South Australia, NSW and the NT.

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