$700m sheep stations for sale
The prized merino sheep stations Boonoke and Wanganella are being listed following the death of stockbroker Colin Bell, while his estranged wife Donna-May Bolinger continues her claim against his residential estate.
Bell held a stake in the massive Riverina and central-west NSW farming portfolio near Deniliquin, Hay and Coonamblem that stretches 225,405ha.
The 18 Australian Food and Agriculture Company (AFA) farms extend over 306 titles that could be worth in excess of $700 million, depending on the water entitlements and crops and livestock, according to Linda Rowley from the website Sheep Central. About 100,000 merino wool sheep, 15,000 cattle and more than 14,000 stud sheep are being carried. The Wanganella and Boonoke legacy dates back to the 1860s.
Home of the Wanganella merino, Boonoke Station homestead, in the southern Riverina, south-west New South Wales. Picture: Laurissa Smith/ABC Rural
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The vendor, AFA, is co-owned by stockbrokers Andrew and Lewis Bell and their late brother Colin, along with Bell Financial Group managing director Alastair Provan and US billionaire hedge fund manager Ray Dalio.
The portfolio with Rabobank Australia financing was offered for sale briefly in 2017 at a reported $330 million price.
Last year AFA generated $132 million revenue, with its latest accounts putting its net assets at $747 million.
The Bell Financial Group founder died in March 2022, leaving an estate initially estimated to be worth up to $130 million.
Bell had been separated from his fourth wife, shoe designer Donna-May Bolinger, who was born in Canada in 1960 and arrived in Australia in 1983.
The late stockbroker Colin Bell on his Boonoke Station.
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His 2015 will left the majority of his estate to his two adult children, Ned Bell, the chief investment officer of Bell Asset Management, and Kate Perkins, whom he had with former wives, and also to an adult stepchild, Sophie Balderstone.
Bolinger was to get his Rosemont Ave, Woollahra, home until a 2020 codicil was added around the time the couple separated. It was bought in 1985 for $580,000 from the Vicars family.
The title has a caveat lodged by the NSW Trustree and Guardian six months before his death along with a caveat by Bolinger from June this year.
There is a return of subpoena order by this Wednesday in the contested probate proceedings in the NSW Supreme Court where Justice Hallen has noted the case was “somewhat complex” and involved “significant and hard-fought contests”.
Not surprising given there were competing death notices, with the official one simply noting Bell “led a huge, full life and will be greatly missed”.
Another noted he was the “Beloved Husband of Donna-May Bolinger” and quoting Psalm 147:3
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