Dream alive for DomaCom’s Kidman Station bid
New life is being breathed into investment platform, DomaCom's, bid to secure the Kidman Station for Australian investor through a crowd-fund campaign, with the reopening of the sale of the properties.
DomaCom chief executive, Arthur Naoumidis, welcomed the decision by S Kidman and Co, after Treasurer Scott Morrison, blocked a proposed sale to Chinese investors last November.
"When DomaCom entered the bidding for Kidman just before Christmas via the process of its Australian Securities and Investments Commission-registered fund, there was no shortage of sceptics in the market who believed it was little more than a publicity stunt," he said
"But what DomaCom realised was that there was enormous interest among ‘mum and dad' investors to invest in part of this country's agricultural heritage.
"Opinion polls show ordinary Australians are deeply concerned about retaining our agricultural land, as well as the businesses that flow from them, and what DomaCom's crowd-funding proposal did was give them the opportunity to give expression to that concern.
"The end result has been that about 4,000 retail investors have pledged about $60 million over the past two months to keep Kidman Station in Australian hands."
When the campaign was announced in December, Naoumidis, said the unusual campaign would put the $360 million properties, which span 101,000 square kilometres in the Northern Territory, Queensland and Western Australian, into play for retail investors, with a minimum investment of $2,500.
AUTHOR
Nicholas O'Donoghue
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