The Australian Agricultural Company Ltd (AACo) has many claims to fame. It’s Australia’s oldest continuously operating company, Australia’s largest cattle and beef producer, operated Australia’s first railway and was once the largest exporter of coal from Newcastle, NSW. Sadly, since 2022, it has been majority-owned by a British billionaire.
The company was established in 1824 by an Act of the British Parliament and incorporated by royal charter. Among those instrumental in its founding was John Macarthur, who sought to advance his interests in the wool industry in New South Wales and ensure a continued supply of convict labour. The company began with a capital of £1 million, raised from British investors and wealthy colonists, and was granted one million acres around Port Stephens on the NSW central coast.
In November 1824, The Sydney Gazette waxed lyrical about the new enterprise.
That this Colony has met with no ordinary consideration in the Mother Country, the formation of the AUSTRALIAN AGRICULTURAL COMPANY will doubtless sufficiently and satisfactorily demonstrate. The flattering auspices under with this Institution—so magnificent in its projects—has been established, gives to Australia an importance in the eyes of the world, to which, by her situation and resources, almost every day is certifying she is entitled.
On February 23, 1826, 80 settlers, 720 sheep, 15 horses and a dozen cattle arrived on Company-chartered ships to establish the new agricultural and pastoral enterprise.
The initial grant was subsequently exchanged for one of comparable size in the interior of the colony, near Tamworth on the Liverpool Downs. However, the company retained the mining rights to its original location and, in the 1830s, began operating coal mines in the Newcastle area. This led to the opening of the first railway, a gravity-operated line linking one of the mines with the Newcastle waterfront.
While the initial focus of the company was sheep, in 1831, Shorthorn bulls were imported from England to develop the company herds. The Australian Agricultural Company continued to raise sheep, cattle and horses until World War I, from 1914 to 1918, when a labour shortage led them to abandon wool production. The company purchased new estates in Queensland and the Northern Territory, more suited to cattle production.
Today, the Australian Agricultural Company owns some 6.5 million hectares (around 16 million acres) of land in Queensland and the Northern Territory, approximately one per cent of Australia’s land area. AACo operates stations, feedlots and farms, and exports premium branded beef around the world. Its headquarters are in Brisbane, and it has been listed (or relisted) on the Australian Stock Exchange since 2001.
Since 2022, AACo has been majority-owned by the Tavistock Group, owned by the British billionaire Joe Lewis. As of 2025, Tavistock owned 52.1 per cent of the company’s shares. Another major shareholder is Tattarang, the investment company owned by mining magnate Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest and his wife, Nicola.