Bidding for Cubbie Station reportedly closed

Bids to buy Australia's biggest irrigator, the sprawling Cubbie Station, reportedly closed this week.

The bidders have been tipped to include PrimeAg, which reportedly wants to take advantage of weak prices for more than $1 billion of irrigated cotton properties currently on the market.

The Australian Financial Review has reported these include Cubbie Station near Dirranbandi, Queensland, although disruptions to PrimeAg's capital raising may have upset its bid plans.

The potential foreign buyers are likely to include Hong Kong-linked Eastern Australia Agriculture, which has already snapped up a string of properties in the cotton-growing district of St George, on the Queensland-NSW border.

The Cayman Islands-based company is backed by Hong Kong-based Pacific Alliance Group, as well as British investors.

Chinese interest including the ­textile producer Shandong YuYi Huagong and private equity firm Olympus Capital Holdings Asia have been looking at large-scale mixed farming assets in Australia.

Hedge funds based in Hong Kong are also among the mooted interested parties.

The Australian newspaper has speculated the vast Cubbie cotton station in southwest Queensland is being eyed by Middle Eastern buyers.

Foreign purchases of more than $231 million will require FIRB approval.

McGrath Nicol are the receivers of Cubbie Station, which went into voluntary administration during the 2009 drought with debts of more than $320 million.

A McGrath Nicol spokesperson would not confirm that bidding had been closed, only saying that receivers had hopes for a sale this year.