Media Release

Today in Parliament House, KAP Member for KennedyBob Katter and Senator Nick Xenophon threw their support behind the 100 per cent Australian bid for Kidman.

BBHO is a consortium of four Australian families. It is understood BBHO entered the Kidman bidding process over two months ago.

It is further understood that BBHO will make a further formal announcement after meeting with financiers today (Friday 10 October 2016).

Mr Katter will co-sponsor legislation in the House of Representatives with NXT party Member Rebekha Sharkie MP (with Senator Xenophon and fellow NXT Senators doing the same in the Senate) to amend foreign takeover laws to ensure any commercially equivalent Australian bid gets priority over a competing bid with foreign interests

Mr Katter said, “ I’m still waiting for the Treasurer to answer my question; I submitted it two weeks ago. ‘what assurances are you going to give us that Kidman majority ownership will not be shifted to the foreign corporation in due course?”

“Now we’ve rejoined reality land and everything in this country is for sale and what about the Australian interest? Well we don’t worry about the Australian interest.

“And have any government officials been involved in any such discussions? Could the Minister further advise what was the outcome of these discussions?”

Senator Xenophon said, “right now it is stacked against local bids. The fact that it doesn’t have to be considered by the FIRB (Foreign Investment Review Board) is a massive loophole in the current situation and the PM and the Treasurer’s failure to answer this is a real worry.”

#Ends#

STATEMENT FROM BBHO - Consortium group member Sterling Buntine

19 October 2016

I can confirm that the families of Tom Brinkworth, Malcolm Harris, Viv Oldfield and myself have been engaged in a review of the S Kidman &Co enterprise. The syndicate formed back in July in the first stages of the new sale process. We have been working closely with Kidman advisor E.Y within the framework of the sale process ever since

The syndicate is presently considering steps that may lead to a potential counter offer to that of Shanghai CRED and Hancock.

If we were to proceed to a formal offer then we would expect that we will be in a position to place and offer that removes several of the significant conditions and uncertainty that the existing Shanghai CRED / Hancock offer contains.

It is my intention to touch base with various parties today to understand any particular item that may remain critical to the structure of our bid.

We have a number of options and legal processes to consider given Kidman’s public company status. So it is intended that, should we elect to proceed with the bid, then we will finalise our decision over coming days

We are fair dinkum about this.I It is our intention to take a great Australian company and legacy - grow it into a global brand that all Australians would be proud of.

Why are we here? We are very passionate about these properties. If you won’t fight, if you won’t bleed for the land, you never wanted it bad enough