FARM NEWS
Rupert Murdoch Rustles Up $200 Million Montana Ranch
Wendy Bowman
Fri, December 10, 2021
Billionaire media honcho Rupert Murdoch and his wife Jerry have quietly picked up a roughly 345,000-acre working cattle ranch in southwest Montana from the Koch family, as first reported by The Wall Street Journal. Situated south of the city of Dillon, near Yellowstone National Park, the off-market transaction netted the Koch Industries subsidiary Matador Cattle Co. a jaw-dropping $200 million in what is reportedly the priciest and largest land deal in the state’s history — dwarfing the sale earlier this year of the approximately 80,000-acre Climbing Arrow Ranch near Bozeman, which went under contract for around $136.5 million after a bidding war.
“This is a profound responsibility,” Murdoch told The Journal via a spokesperson regarding the purchase of Beaverhead Ranch. The couple, who have been seeking to buy a ranch for about a year, said they plan to spend time on the premises, and to continue enhancing Beaverhead’s commercial cattle business and conservation efforts.
Originally acquired more than 70 years ago by Fred Koch, founder of the crude-oil gathering business that later became Koch Industries, the property houses the Matador Cattle Ranch, a division of Koch Industries, currently led by Fred’s son Charles Koch. About one-third of the land’s acres are deeded, and there are grazing rights on about 226,000 leased acres. The ranch houses nearly 7,000 cow/calf pairs, along with diverse wildlife population, including about 4,000 elk, 800 antelope and 1,500 mule deer. There’s also a 28-mile-long trout pond and 25 homes, mostly for employees.
In 2002, Beaverhead became the first U.S. ranch to receive Wildlife at Work certification from the Wildlife Habitat Council for outstanding natural resource management initiatives.
Murdoch, 90, serves as executive chairman of News Corp. — owner of Fox News Channel, The Wall Street Journal and The Times of London — and has an estimated net worth of $21.6 billion, per Forbes. The couple also maintain a 13-acre, $28.8 million estate and winery known as Moraga Vineyards in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Bel Air, plus a roughly 25,000-acre sheep and cattle farm in Murdoch’s native home of Australia.
As for the Koch family and their related entities: In March, they sold Spring Creek Ranch, a roughly 11,000-acre ranch in Kansas originally listed for around $23.2 million; and they listed their 131,000-acre Matador Ranch in West Texas several months ago for $124.45 million. One of the nation’s richest families, Forbes places the Kochs net worth at around $100 billion.
Chance Bernall of Beaverhead Home & Ranch Real Estate repped the seller with Joel Leadbetter of Hall and Hall. The Murdochs were repped by Tim Murphy of Hall and Hall.
Wendy Bowman
Fri, December 10, 2021
Billionaire media honcho Rupert Murdoch and his wife Jerry have quietly picked up a roughly 345,000-acre working cattle ranch in southwest Montana from the Koch family, as first reported by The Wall Street Journal. Situated south of the city of Dillon, near Yellowstone National Park, the off-market transaction netted the Koch Industries subsidiary Matador Cattle Co. a jaw-dropping $200 million in what is reportedly the priciest and largest land deal in the state’s history — dwarfing the sale earlier this year of the approximately 80,000-acre Climbing Arrow Ranch near Bozeman, which went under contract for around $136.5 million after a bidding war.
“This is a profound responsibility,” Murdoch told The Journal via a spokesperson regarding the purchase of Beaverhead Ranch. The couple, who have been seeking to buy a ranch for about a year, said they plan to spend time on the premises, and to continue enhancing Beaverhead’s commercial cattle business and conservation efforts.
Originally acquired more than 70 years ago by Fred Koch, founder of the crude-oil gathering business that later became Koch Industries, the property houses the Matador Cattle Ranch, a division of Koch Industries, currently led by Fred’s son Charles Koch. About one-third of the land’s acres are deeded, and there are grazing rights on about 226,000 leased acres. The ranch houses nearly 7,000 cow/calf pairs, along with diverse wildlife population, including about 4,000 elk, 800 antelope and 1,500 mule deer. There’s also a 28-mile-long trout pond and 25 homes, mostly for employees.
In 2002, Beaverhead became the first U.S. ranch to receive Wildlife at Work certification from the Wildlife Habitat Council for outstanding natural resource management initiatives.
Murdoch, 90, serves as executive chairman of News Corp. — owner of Fox News Channel, The Wall Street Journal and The Times of London — and has an estimated net worth of $21.6 billion, per Forbes. The couple also maintain a 13-acre, $28.8 million estate and winery known as Moraga Vineyards in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Bel Air, plus a roughly 25,000-acre sheep and cattle farm in Murdoch’s native home of Australia.
As for the Koch family and their related entities: In March, they sold Spring Creek Ranch, a roughly 11,000-acre ranch in Kansas originally listed for around $23.2 million; and they listed their 131,000-acre Matador Ranch in West Texas several months ago for $124.45 million. One of the nation’s richest families, Forbes places the Kochs net worth at around $100 billion.
Chance Bernall of Beaverhead Home & Ranch Real Estate repped the seller with Joel Leadbetter of Hall and Hall. The Murdochs were repped by Tim Murphy of Hall and Hall.
Mark Williams, The Columbus Dispatch
Fri, December 10, 2021
This tree-lined driveway, off of State Route 38, is part of the Madison County farmland owned by Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates that might become part of a solar farm. The actual owner of the farm is a company called Midwest Farms, owner of about 6,300 acres of farmland in Union, Deer Creek, Monroe and Somerford townships.
A renewable energy company is moving ahead with plans to develop one of the largest solar farms in the U.S. in Madison County that includes land owned by Bill Gates.
The 10,000-acre solar farm would be built north of London near Plumwood and would cost at least $1 billion to build.
The project, called Oak Run, is in its initial stages, and Kansas City-based Savion says it likely will be next summer before it submits an application to the Ohio Power Siting Board, the state agency that approves construction of new sources of electricity. If all goes well and the project is approved, construction likely wouldn't begin until 2024 or 2025, the company said.
The Dispatch reported in June that Savion had an option to buy the 6,300-acre Gates farm in Madison County. Other surrounding property owners have signed on, swelling the size of the project.
“We look forward to developing a project that generates emission-free energy while providing financial stability for landowners and wide-ranging benefits for Madison County,” Sarah Moser, development director for Savion, said in a statement.
The project, expected to have an operating life of 35 years, could generate up to 1,600 megawatts of electricity at any one time, enough to power about 342,000 Ohio households, according to Savion. That's on par with some of the state's biggest power plants.
Property records don't directly link Gates, the cofounder of Microsoft, to the 6,300 acres. County records show Midwest Farms LLC of Monterey, Louisiana, is the actual owner of the farmland in Union, Deer Creek, Monroe and Somerford townships that belongs to Gates. Midwest Farms bought more than 5,000 acres for $27.1 million in 2009, the Dispatch reported at the time. Additional land was acquired in 2018 for more than $2 million.
Other documents and media accounts do make the connection, and Madison County officials have said it's common knowledge that Gates is the owner.
The announcement of Oak Run marks another step in the surge of solar farms in Ohio with more than 40 farms in some stage of development. Amazon alone is behind 16 of the projects.
But Oak Run would be by far the biggest in Ohio should it be built and one of the largest in the country.
Another huge solar project in northwest Indiana called Mammoth Solar will take up 13,000 acres. Ground was broken on the first phase of that project in October.
The Oak Run site is about 4.5 miles south of the Madison Fields solar project that Savion also is developing. Construction of that project is expected to start in August.
Savion says the ultimate size and design of Oak Run will depend on several factors, including how many landowners agree to participate, community feedback, regulatory requirements and efforts to minimize the impact of the project on the community.
Savion says the project would generate between $242 million and $504 million in tax revenue over its lifespan.
mawilliams@dispatch.com
@BizMarkWilliams
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