There’s no foundation to metropolitan media suggestions overnight that Bindaree Food Group and its offshore partners are actively pursuing an investment interest in the mothballed Livingstone Beef plant near Darwin.

Bindaree along with the business’s Chinese billionaire investor Hui Wing Mau’s Shimao Group was connected with AA Co’s troubled Livingstone facility near Darwin in the gossip columns of the metropolitan financial press yesterday.

Like a host of other Australian processing interests, Bindaree did have a look at the plant towards the end of last year, following an attempt to find a buyer through Kidder Williams.

But as has been seen numerous times in the past, there’s a huge leap between making an inspection of a processing facility like this, and actually progressing a plan to purchase.

Both Bindaree and the Australian Agricultural Co have told Beef Central this morning that there’s nothing in the rumour. No doubt the Darwin beef industry community in advance of next week’s annual NT Cattlemens Association conference would have gone into overdrive if there was any real prospect of a sale.

JBS was similarly incorrectly linked to a Livingstone purchase a month or so ago, having itself made an inspection of the site before Christmas. But in identical fashion, JBS denied to Beef Central that there was any real purchase intent.

Such site inspections are more often than not about market intelligence and gathering information about competitors’ designs and facilities, than any real appetite to purchase, Beef Central was told.

Kimberley Meat Co deal also looks shakey

Across the Western Australian border, prospects of a sale for the north’s only other significant beef processing facility, the mothballed Kimberley Meat Co plant near Broome, also looks on shakey ground.

Administrators for an embattled cattle/processing enterprise in Western Australia’s north have appeared in the state’s Supreme Court as proceedings threaten the company’s $55 million rescue deal. Some saw the price as representing fair value for the pastoral assets and cattle, but virtually ‘giving away’ the processing facility.

Yeeda Pastoral Co and its subsidiaries, including the Kimberley Meat Co, went into administration early last year carrying $120 million in debt.

Canadian-based fund owned TLP4 Australian Holdings later entered into a Deed of Company Arrangement to buy the company in August, valuing the properties and the abattoir at $55 million. To finalise the sale, Yeeda administrators KordaMentha sought Supreme Court leave to transfer all YPC shares to TLP4 ownership.

Transcripts showed Fitzroy River Limited Liability Co, a 20pc shareholder of Yeeda, alleged the valuation from YPC used to inform the price of shares was inadmissible.

After two days of proceedings on February 12–13, Supreme Court Justice Jennifer Hill adjourned the matter, calling for further evidence. The senior counsel for Fitzroy argued RSM Global, the company contracted by KordaMentha to report the value of Yeeda’s pastoral land and cattle, relied on outdated valuations done by real estate andf valuations company LAWD.

Paul Edgar, representing KordaMentha, accepted the LAWD reports were dated, but did not accept this meant it was unreasonable to rely upon them.

• Australian arm AIMCo has ignored requests from Beef Central to discuss the state of the deal.