AUGUST 2025
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larger than Tasmania and more than twice the size of Switzerland. Three years ago they were revealed as the buyers of four stations, totalling 3.26 million hectares, from billionaire mining giant Gina Rinehart’s S.Kidman & Co including Ruby Plains and Sturt Creek stations in Western Australia and Innamincka Station and Macumba Station in South Australia.
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hectares. Based on the 160,000-hectare Tierawoomba station, 100km inland from Mackay in central Queensland, the Hughes family have created a quiet expansion over the past two decades. The Hughes’ also made the astute call to experiment crossbreeding with Japan’s pampered black Wagyu cattle breed way back in 1992. Since then their two associated cattle companies, Hughes Pastoral and Georgina Pastoral, have risen to be a superpower in Australia’s beef industry including a recent $66 million purchase of the 33,959-hectare Taylors Plains property at Mungallala in southwest Queensland. Liam Lenaghan GO.FARM F ounded in 2013 by Liam Lenaghan, with investors and developers. The company specialises in transforming under-utilised farmland into high-performing, irrigated horticultural assets in southern Australia, laying claim to a $1.5 billion portfolio at present. A former Ballarat country boy and trained agronomist, Lenaghan’s GO.FARM also secured a $200 million co- investment from Qantas Super to support the regeneration and development of their landholdings. Last year the company acquired the 3300-hectare Eurambeen Station and Grandview properties west of Ballarat while also launching the $300 million Responsible Agriculture Fund to pursue new land transformation projects independently of its existing investor base. backing from Costa Asset Management, GO.FARM has grown into one of Australia’s most prominent agricultural
her dominance in mining but for her fast-growing agricultural and apparel interests. Executive chair of Hancock Prospecting, she oversees the nation’s largest private resources company, the success of which has fuelled major investments beyond iron ore, including stakes in lithium producers Azure Minerals and Liontown Resources, commercial property acquisitions and the purchase of iconic Australian brands Driza-Bone and Rossi Boots. Rinehart is also one of the country’s largest private landholders through her majority ownership of S. Kidman & Co and Hancock Agriculture. In 2025 alone, her companies have spent more than $180 million acquiring about 22,000 hectares of prime grazing country in NSW.
Mark Allison ELDERS CEO E lders boss Mark Allison is shaping up for what could well be one of the biggest years of his career as
Liz O’Leary MACQUARIE ASSET MANAGEMENT A t the helm of Macquarie Asset Management’s global
the rural services giant advances its proposed $475 million takeover of Delta Agribusiness
— a deal years in the making but now under scrutiny from the competition watchdog. The ACCC has warned the acquisition could substantially lessen competition in several key farming regions, making the outcome a defining moment for the 185-year- old agribusiness. Allison, a far north Queensland native who has led Elders as managing director and CEO since 2014, had planned to retire in 2023 but shelved those plans after the board’s global search failed to find a stronger candidate. He has now committed to staying until at least 2026. Amanda Bardwell WOOLWORTHS CEO A t just 14, Amanda Bardwell’s working life began on her Woolworths Group — Australia’s largest supermarket chain — a role she assumed in September last year. Bardwell took the reins at a challenging time for the retailer, with Woolworths losing market share to rival Coles, facing the fallout from a two-week strike that wiped $240 million from sales, and navigating cost-of-living pressures faced by budget-conscious shoppers. In February, the company posted a 21 per cent drop in underlying half-year profit to $739 million. At Woolworths since 2001, Bardwell has pledged to carefully consider recent ACCC recommendations aimed at improving supermarket pricing transparency and supplier relationships. Gina Rinehart HANCOCK PROSPECTING/ HANCOCK AGRICULTURE A ustralia’s richest person Gina Rinehart makes the power-list cut not only for feet in a small food store on the outskirts of Brisbane. Three decades later, she is in the hot seat as boss of
agriculture investment arm is Liz O’Leary, responsible
for the second-largest portfolio of farming assets, by value, in the country. It includes more than $4 billion of investments nationally, including the country’s largest cotton farm — the 93,700-hectare Cubbie Station, near Dirranbandi in southern Queensland — Cowal Agriculture near Emerald, broadacre cropping business Viridis Ag and multistate enterprise Vitalharvest, acquired in 2021 for $357.35 million. Macquarie also owns and operates the 4.48 million-hectare Paraway Pastoral Company, but recently announced its intentions to divest the sheep and beef enterprise, where it could be worth well in excess of $2.5 billion.
Wagner family WAGNER CORPORATION N o list of regional Australian powerhouses is
complete without the Wagner family of southeast Queensland — a name synonymous with ambition, innovation and major infrastructure
delivery. From their origins in Queensland in 1856, the Wagners have built a business empire spanning construction materials, property, infrastructure and sustainable development. Founded in 1989 by Henry Wagner and sons John, Denis, Neill and Joe, Wagners has grown into one of Queensland’s most influential companies. Wagner Corporation, chaired by John Wagner, has driven landmark projects reshaping the Toowoomba region and beyond. The family’s most high-profile achievement is Toowoomba Wellcamp Airport — Australia’s first privately funded public airport — and the adjoining Wellcamp Business Park, now home to the Qantas Group Pilot Academy and the state’s largest fresh food export hub. In May, Wagner blamed the federal government’s “anti- regional Australia” policies for Wellcamp’s loss of a weekly Cathay Pacific airfreight flight to Hong Kong. Leah Weckert COLES CEO T wo years into her role as chief executive officer and managing director of
ALSO ...
David Bryant Rural Funds Management CEO Garry Edwards AAM Investments CEO Guy Hands Consolidated Pastoral Peter Harris PJ Harris and Sons Mick Hewitt Hewitt Cattle CEO Michael Hintze MH Premium Farms Paul Holmes a Court Heytesbury Pastoral Li Ka-Shing CK Life Sciences Hugh Killen Impact Ag Australia CEO Allan Myers Dunkeld Pastoral Company Joe Robertson Australian Food and Fibre CEO Perich family Leppington Pastoral Company
Viv Oldfield and Donny Costello CROWN POINT PASTORAL COMPANY T ogether this pair of mates have
built Australia’s largest pastoral empire by mass, spanning more than 9.2 million hectares through the Northern Territory, South
Australia and Western Australia. The former horse trainers and owners have purchased 13 stations and grazing properties over the past decade and half, curating a swath of landholdings
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