Qingnan Wen: Mysterious Chinese titan buying up Australian farmland

A Chinese business magnate has conquered an excellent Australian countryside the size of a small European nation to live like an English landlord.

Qingnan Wen has just added another 1,660-acre sheep station to its $100 million property portfolio, spanning 62 square kilometers and larger than San Marino, near Italy.

The reclusive billionaire literally got rich off the sheep’s back, making his fortune as Australia’s top exporter of wool through his Jiangsu-based Tianyu Wool.

And he is on a mission to bring back the glory days of wool production in Australia.

His latest acquisition is the historic 170-year-old Nerrinyerie farmhouse, near Harrow in Victoria’s western Wimmera region, purchased for an estimated $20 million.

It adds to its sprawling 2,349-acre sheep station at Mawallok Farm, near Beaufort, which cost more than $25 million when sold in February 2020.

Mawallok includes a beautiful 10-bedroom mansion built in 1908 where he can enjoy all the trappings of a tweed-clad English aristocrat, including tennis courts and a private six-hole golf course.

It features a 10 acre artificial lake designed by Sir John Monash in the style of England’s finest country houses, as well as ornate manicured gardens designed by William Guilfoyle.

He paid a further $20 million in 2014 for the 2,000-acre Lal Lal estate and Swan Lake at Ballarat, and also owns a further 1,600 acres of countryside on Mokanger and Lewana farms, west of the Grampians near Cavendish.

Lal Lal’s property also includes a stunning Edwardian house, alongside stables dating back to 1858, when the Fisk family first moved into the area six generations ago before selling it to Mr Wen.

He now oversees the pastures of up to 60,000 Merino sheep to meet the insatiable needs of his company, China’s largest importer and manufacturer of wool.

Mr. Wen began as a fashion retailer in the 1980s and quickly became a passionate fan of using wool in his clothing.

In the decades since, he’s transitioned to becoming a full-fledged sheep farmer – and a staunch advocate for getting other Australian farmers on board.

“It’s given me a real understanding of the whole wool industry – and how we can improve it,” he said in a rare interview six years ago.

Australian wool production is recovering very slowly from a dip in the last decade after a boom in the 1990s when it was three times what it is today.

Wool production this year is expected to reach 328,000,000 kg from 71.5 million sheep, up from 324 million kg last year, and is expected to increase again to 332 million kg next year.

But that’s a shadow of the annual production of 1,100 Mkg in the 1990s, when around 120 million sheep grazed rural Australia.

The price of wool has also fallen – from nearly $21 per kilo in 2018 to less than $12 per kilo today.

“The biggest problem with Australian merino wool is volume – or lack of it – and the way the quality of Australian fine wool has begun to decline,” he said in 2017.

“It is understandable that there is less wool now, because if wool prices are too low, farmers are not making enough profit and there is no money or incentive to get them to improve their business.

“I want to change that.”

About 85 percent of Australian wool is sold at 46 weekly auctions across the country, with the main sales locations in Melbourne, Sydney and Fremantle.

But instead, Mr. Wen – who buys at least 10 percent of the country’s wool production – wants to get farmers to sign long-term deals with companies like his.

About 82 percent of Australia’s total wool production is now exported to China, but the sheer volume can make the market volatile for both buyers and sellers, prompting a push for fixed prices.

In 2017, he arranged for 130 delegates from the China Wool Industrial Association, whose members buy about $3 billion worth of Australian wool each year, to hold their “Wool Salon” conference in Lal Lal, the first time it has been held outside of China.

He denied wanting to end Australia’s wool auction system, but used the event for local sheep farmers to meet buyers in person to look into making long-term deals.

‘I like the auction system, it’s fair; I never said we don’t want to,” said Mr. Wen SheepCentral at the time.

“But what I think is the wool market in Australia is like taking a roller coaster.

“When wool prices hit rock bottom, you see a lot of bad things happen.

“So what I’d like to see is us working together to see how we can stabilize the supply chain so that everyone can share in the benefits of this pipeline.

“Otherwise someone will make a lot of money one day, but someone will make a big loss.”

Meanwhile, he has also developed his properties to welcome Chinese tourists, with a Chinese-language visitor center in Lal Lal to sell the benefits of wool.

“I would very much like to share the beauty with most Chinese visitors,” he said at the time.

“We have five billion people and Australian-grown food, and wool will become more and more precious.

“I want Chinese consumers to see what natural wool from Australia is like, how it is produced and to see for themselves the beauty of this Australian farm and its sheep.

“If everyone in China wants wool clothing, sees (how) versatile the fabric is and thinks it is affordable, then the demand and price of wool will have to increase.”