Entrepreneur Markus Kahlbetzer's BridgeLane buys Sam Chisholm's Bundarbo Station
Bundarbo Station, the cattle farm of the late media executive Sam Chisholm and his wife Sue at Jugiong, has been bought by the entrepreneur Markus Kahlbetzer, who heads the BridgeLane Group investment company.
He is the son of one of Australia’s most famous pastoralists, John Dieter Kahlbetzer, who founded the Twynam Agricultural Group in the early 1970s.
The 38-year-old Kahlbetzer heads the investment group that is only the third owner of the property since its pioneer settlement.
The property was taken up in the 1840s by the Osborne family, who held some 65,000 acres.
It was owned by the family for 150 years until sold in 1995 for $2.7 million to the Chisholms.
Set on the Murrumbidgee River, near Yass, the 2400 hectare Bundarbo became a passion of Chisholm, especially after he stepped away from the television industry where he worked both locally and internationally, at times for Channel 9 in Australia and for BSkyB in the UK.
It was home to Hazeldean blood commercial Angus breeding herd comprising around 1100 Angus breeders.
Bundarbo Station had also been run as a successful Merino sheep and prime lamb breeding property.
On its listing, the Meares & Associates Sydney agent Chris Meares recalled Chisholm had been a very keen supporter of rural Australia.
“Sam always believed that every successful Australian should invest back into the rural sector,” he said.
The farm came with $30 million hopes. The sale comes as the worst of the drought is creeping south through NSW.
The Mosman-based Kahlbetzer seems intent on creating a rural realm through his BridgeLane investment group, which provides investors with the promise of spotting emerging trends shaping the future of agriculture, property and technology.
BridgeLane currently owns some 80,000 hectares of cotton, soybean, cereal and corn country in Argentina.
His father’s worldwide agribusiness success saw Twynam own more than 400,000 hectares at its peak, selling the final two major Australian properties last year.
Raised in Argentina and the US after his father began diversifying the family’s farming investments into South American farmland, Kahlbetzer (pictured) has previously noted his international upbringing and corporate agricultural experience gave him a slightly different appreciation for the industry.
He recently told an international forum that he sees the advantages of scale, supply chain investment and the industry’s changing global opportunities.
This article was first published in the Sunday Telegraph.