Australia’s richest woman Gina Rinehart is offering A$365m (US$277m) in conjunction with a Chinese partner for a historic cattle company that could…

Australia’s richest woman Gina Rinehart is offering A$365m (US$277m) in conjunction with a Chinese partner for a historic cattle company that could test Canberra’s tolerance for Chinese investment after it turned down two previous bids for the land

The offer for S Kidman & Co, which owns more than 1 per cent of the country’s landmass — an area that is bigger than Ireland — was made by Australian Outback Beef, a company two-thirds owned by Ms Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting and one-third by Shanghai CRED Real Estate, owned by Chinese businessman Gui Guojie

Two previous bids by a Chinese consortium for the land were blocked by Canberra, in part due to national security concerns related to the presence of a missile range on the vast Anna Creek station

The AOB offer is conditional on gaining foreign investment approval from Canberra and on the separate disposal by Kidman of Anna Creek, which makes up almost a quarter of the area controlled by the company

“Kidman is an iconic cattle business established more than a century ago by Sir Sidney Kidman,” said Gina Rinehart in a statement. “It is an operation founded on hard work and perseverance by an outstanding Australian, and is an important part of Australia’s pioneering and entrepreneurial history.”

Shanghai CRED, which was founded in 1999, was part of a consortium that submitted a previous bid for Kidman but which was knocked back by Canberra on national security grounds

Mr Gui, a low-profile property developer, said in a statement that partnering with Hancock had already proved to be a productive approach and he looked forward to having the opportunity to work with Hancock through the Kidman investment