Rallen Australia top volume bull buyer at 2023 Rockhampton Brahman Week Sale

It was bid card number 105, belonging to Northern Territory business Rallen Australia, that was heard over the speaker multiple times across the three days.

Rallen Australia secured 53 bulls for an average of $4775 and top price of $14,000.

The company is a subsidiary of Rallen Pty Ltd, founded by Giovanni Ravazzotti, a manufacturer and retailer of tiles and bathware in South Africa who held a passion for beef cattle and nature conservation.

Following a holiday to the Northern Territory in 2017, the Langenhoven and Ravazzotti family undertook an extensive due diligence process, in search for available properties to begin their investment in the northern beef industry.

Rallen Australia first purchased the 376,000 hectare Kalala Station, in the Daly Waters region in March 2019, followed a year later with the acquisition of the 501,000 ha Tanumbirini Station on the Carpentaria Highway.

As part of the acquisition, Rallen Australia became the new owner of Forrest Hill Station, a 53,800ha property in the Sturt Plateau region.

Rallen's sister company, Amanzi Property Group, purchased Mt McMinn back in June 2018, Big River in December, 2018 and Larrizona in January, 2021.

Rallen Australia oversees 64,000 head of Brahman and Brahman cross cattle across their aggregation of properties.

The company offloads predominantly feeder steers into the live export market in Indonesia, Vietnam and Malaysia, weighing between 300 and 380 kilograms.

Around 15 per cent of the operations annual cull breeders, herd bulls and light steers are offloaded into Australia's southern markets.

Rallen Australia's state operations manager Andrew Stubbs, said their ideal position in the Northern Territory ensured market viability.

"What is important to us is our properties have access to bitumen so we are able to supply those cattle to the market overseas, but a lot of properties can't source cattle at that stage because of the wet season, which is fairly big in the Territory and some of those properties are inaccessible," Mr Stubbs said.

In 2022, Rallen Australia purchased 28 bulls from the Rockhampton Brahman Week Sale and before that in 2021, they secured two stud sires for their unregistered stud.

"...this year, obviously the pricing was really good for us and there was some quality bulls going at really good pricing, which is why we ended up buying more," Mr Stubbs said.

Mr Stubbs said the Brahman breed held significant merit for them as a company operating in Northern Australia.

"That is what our market is asking for, a very clean, well structured Brahman animal. The firm skin, the hump, the big ears is vital to being selected for that market," he said.

"We've always had a passion for the Brahman cattle, which we did farm within South Africa and this was just a continuation of being very similar type of territory and terrain and an animal that we liked breeding.

"We really feel strongly about the Brahman breed especially the nutritional value of the meat and that it has a low fat content."

At this year's sale, Rallen Australia secured 48 bulls and five for their sister company, Amanzi Property Group. Mr Stubbs said the bulls will be split between Kalala and Tanumbirini Station.

He said they were looking for a "well structured bull" and bulls that were younger between 20-26 months to be able to join their first time heifers.

"We don't want a big bull with a much lighter heifer," he said.

"We do look for bulls that are not overly big in the structure because of the terrain and then the harsh conditions during the dry season, we need bulls that can cover distance to get to water."

At last year's sale, Rallen Australia went as high as $60,000 to purchase one of their top bulls, but Mr Stubbs acknowledged a lot of the bulls they were interested in were above the price they were looking to spend.

"We couldn't quite find exactly what we're looking for and our highest price was $14,000 this year," he said.

"The stud bulls that we identified that we were interested in, unfortunately went a bit higher than what we wanted to pay.

"It wasn't that there wasn't bulls available, it was just that the price we wanted to pay for those bulls, obviously there were other people who were prepared to pay more for them."

Mr Stubbs said they also purchased predominately grey bulls and bulls with polled genetics.

"The red bulls last year had a lot more with the polled genetics and the greys were limited, while this year because the pricing is down I think, to do with climate and the market conditions, we put a lot more there than we'd anticipated," he said.

Following the conclusion of the sale, the Rallen Australia management team visited several of their bull clients in central Queensland, eventually securing an additional 120 herd bulls to take home back to the Territory.

"Obviously, having dealt with some of those vendors, after meeting them at the auctions we attended previously, we started building relationships and a lot of our purchases were done after the Rockhampton sale on those properties themselves for both our commercial and stud herd," Mr Stubb said.

"The bulls we have purchased will stay in Cloncurry for clearance, dipping and a rest period between the journey and from then, they'll travel direct to Kalala."

Mr Stubbs said while they operate their own stud, they are yet to register it.

"It's ready to be able to breed cattle in the Territory which are suited to our environment and because we're breeding them there they adapt a lot better," he said.

"We're thinking of registering our stud but only for our own to ensure that we're following good practices in terms of bloodlines and introducing new mutant genetics and especially the polled animal that's very important."

Rallen Australia is also looking to expand its carrying capacity.

"We're going through property valuations of carrying capacity and developing the properties so that we get the best utilisation of pasture and that's mainly through making water available in three kilometre radius," Mr Stubbs said.

"That is allowing us to increase our herd without any detriment to the environment at all because we're very conscious about being conservative on carrying capacity.

"We also run our business with a sustainable focus, because we are in this for the long term.

"We want to ensure that we breed the right animal for the right conditions and that meets the market."

Mr Stubbs acknowledged the northern beef industry's concern around foot and mouth and lumpy skin disease, which had attributed to market uncertainty.

"There's been a big decrease in the price value of the cattle and I think there were some concerns about foot and mouth and lumpy skin disease," he said.

"I think just generally the pricing we were receiving last year was more than where the pricing should be, so we were expecting the prices to go down, because they weren't realistic last year.

"It was unusual increase in price over the last two years and we were waiting and expecting this change to happen and then it certainly has headed that way."

Mr Stubbs said Rallen Australia would continue to support the Rockhampton Brahman Week Sale for "many years to come".