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UPDATE 1-Australia blocks land sale to Chinese for second time in six months

Published 29/04/2016, 02:01 pm
© Reuters.  UPDATE 1-Australia blocks land sale to Chinese for second time in six months

* Australia rejected last Chinese-led bid for lands in Nov.

* Land equivalent to about 2.5 pct of Australia agriculture lands

* Chinese consortium offered A$371 million for lands (Updates with more detail, comment from Morrison)

SYDNEY, April 29 (Reuters) - The Australian government on Friday blocked the sale of S. Kidman & Co, the country's largest private land holding, to a Chinese-led consortium for the second time in six months, again saying the sale is not in the national interest.

Treasurer Scott Morrison said he had given China's Hunan Dakang Pasture Farming Co Ltd 002505.SZ and Shanghai CRED Real Estate Stock Co Ltd until Tuesday to address the government's concerns over the A$371 million ($288 million) offer.

Ownership of farmland is a sensitive issue in Australia amid concerns that foreign buyers are snapping up properties to cash in on a boom in food demand from Asia. The Kidman lands are about 2.5 percent of Australia's agricultural land.

Morrison rejected a previous Chinese-led offer for the ranching company - whose land holdings are the size of South Korea - just six months ago. the size and significance of the Kidman portfolio I am concerned that the acquisition of an 80 per cent interest in S. Kidman & Co Limited by Dakang Australia Holdings Pty Ltd (Dakang) may be contrary to the national interest," Morrison told reporters on Friday.

Morrison also expressed doubts that any Australian bidders will be able to purchase the Kidman lands because of the size of the assets.

"The form in which the Kidman portfolio has been offered as a single aggregated asset, has rendered it difficult for Australian bidders to be able to make a competitive bid," he added.

The previous offer for S. Kidman by two Chinese companies, Genius Link Asset and Shanghai Pengxin, had raised red flags because Kidman's Anna Creek cattle station in South Australia state is close to an Australian military rocket test site.

Kidman had agreed under the new deal to remove Anna Creek from the sale.

Kidman's 10 cattle stations cover more than 100,000 sq km (25 million acres) of land spread across Western Australia, the Northern Territory, Queensland and South Australia.

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