Shandong Ruyi receives deadline extension to reduce its stake in country’s leading cotton producer

By

Matthieu Guinebault

Translated by
Nicola Mira

Published
Jul 9, 2019

At the beginning of July, Australian Finance Minister Josh Frydenberg announced that the government had granted an extension of the deadline by which Chinese conglomerate Shandong Ruyi needs to reduce its shareholding in Cubbie Station, an Australian irrigation specialist and owner of the country's largest cotton production site. This is the latest development in a political-legal wrangle that began in 2012.

At the time, Shandong Ruyi’s acquisition of a majority stake in Cubbie Station for AUD250 million (€156 million) had been approved by Australia’s then-Finance Minister Wayne Swan, on condition that Shandong Ruyi eventually lower its stake from 80% to 51%, in accordance with local legislation on investment by foreign entities. Shandong Ruyi was allowed a period of three years to reduce its shareholding, only for Australia’s current Prime Minister, Scott Morison, at the time the Finance Minister, to then announce a further three-year extension.

At the end of 2018, it was established that Shandong Ruyi still owned an 80% stake in Cubbie Station. However, the Chinese group issued a brief statement in which it confirmed it was still compliant with Australian financial regulations. At the time, Shandong Ruyi said it could not disclose any further information, owing to on-going negotiations.

Six months later, the Australian government, until now silent on the subject, has announced the granting of an extension to Shandong Ruyi. Unofficially, the government hopes that negotiations with Australian investment group Macquarie will be settled swiftly, though at the start of the year the local press reported that Macquarie was dragging its heels, hesitant in acquiring a minority stake in Cubbie Station, of which it would only have partial control.

Cubbie Station owns 93,000 hectares of land in South-West Queensland, of which 22,000 are irrigated. This makes the company a major player in Australia’s cotton industry, which in the 2017-18 year produced 4.6 million bales of cotton through its 1,436 farms, according to the local industry association, Cotton Australia. Australia is the world’s third-largest exporter of cotton, behind the USA and India, and its main clients are China, Bangladesh, Vietnam and India.