David Murray buys more historic Merriwa farm holdings
The former Commonwealth Bank chief David Murray has expanded his Upper Hunter farm holdings.
He has spent a further $8.7 million in the Merriwa district.
His wagyu cattle station acquisition was once part of Brindley Park, the vast farm owned by pioneering pastoralist James Brindley Bettington in the 1800s.
It was 2013 when Murray first bought a slice of the historic estate with his $2.95 million outlay on The Dales homestead (above).
The sale ended 178 years of ownership across five generations by the pioneering farming family.
The Hunters Hill-based Murray also spent $4.7 million on another chunk of grazing land.
Now four years on his latest purchases of $2,263,000 and $6,479,000 takes his aggregation of the former Brindley Park estate to over $15 million.
MacCallum Inglis agent Michael Burke sold the latest offering on behalf of the vendors, the beef and lamb producer Crown State.
Crown State is ultimately controlled by Sherwell Holdings, a company based in the British Virgin Islands. It's directed by the Los Angeles-born, Rose Bay resident, Jon Choi.
Murray was the inaugural chairman of the Australian Government Future Fund Board of Guardians and served for six years.
Before the Future Fund, Murray was the chief executive officer of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia for 13 years.
During his tenure CBA transformed from a partly privatised bank with a market capitalisation of $6 billion in 1992 to a $49 billion integrated financial services company.
This article first appeared in the Sunday Telegraph.
