S. Kidman & Co
Australian beef producing company

S. Kidman & Co is an Australian producer of beef. While it used to be one of the largest producers, since being owned by Gina Rinehart's Hancock Prospecting since December 2016, it has been selling off its properties. As of 10 April 2023 it has four pastoral leases, one in the Northern Territory and three in Queensland.
History
S. Kidman & Co was founded in 1899 by Sidney Kidman. He was one of the greatest pastoral landholders in Australian history and became known by the nickname of "The Cattle King".
The entire landholding was placed up for sale in April 2015, comprising 11 cattle stations with a total area of over 100,000 square kilometres (38,610 sq mi) with a herd of 155,000 cattle. The total value of the company was estimated at A$360.5 million, and cattle stations in Western Australia, South Australia, Queensland, and the Northern Territory. In the year ending June 2015, Kidman recorded A$62 million in livestock sales, reflecting an increase of 10.71% on the previous year.
When two Chinese companies, Genius Link Asset Management and Shanghai Pengxin, were interested in acquiring the company in November 2015, the sale was blocked by the Treasurer of Australia, Scott Morrison, who cited the national interest clause in the Foreign Investment Act.
In December 2016, a Hancock Prospecting (67%) / Shanghai CRED (33%) joint venture purchased the company.
“S. Kidman & Co” enters the record as australian beef producing company. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Kidman, Australian and beef can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q28224048. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2016, 2023, 1899 and 2015.
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This entry incorporates text from “S. Kidman & Co” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.