Stay away from Aussie icons, Chinese companies warned

Stay away from Aussie icons if you want a successful deal here, the head of the board that reviews overseas bids for Australian assets has told Chinese companies, according to a report in The Australian.

Brian Wilson, the chairman of the Foreign Investment Review Board, told a forum of Chinese companies on Tuesday that his board and the government needed the public’s backing so had to be conscious of peoples’ feelings about deals.

“My advice if you are thinking of investing is stay away from the business icons — they are always going to be difficult — and really make the case for the benefits, by talking about jobs created, the growth of markets, added value and what your capital can do,” Wilson told the group Chinese businesses that operate in the Australian agriculture sector.

He also said that such deals may get easier “with the passage of time,” as Australians got used to more Chinese living and buying assets here,

Treasurer Scott Morrison vetoed the sale of the massive Kidman cattle property to a Chinese company in November 2015, in part because some of the property was near a government weapons testing area in Woomera in South Australia.

His decision came after public outcry over the sale of a historic Australian property to foreign owners.

Chinese officials complained that the rejection was “discriminative” and warned that they would be put off doing deals in Australia.

The Kidman property was eventually sold to a group led local mining billionaire Gina Rinehart that included a Chinese company. The biggest station in the Kidman empire, a property and outstation called Anna Creek and The Peak, however, was sold to a neighbouring farming family. Anna Creek was the nearest part of the Kidman property to the weapons testing zone.

What do you think about foreign ownership of Australian assets? Should we be worried that Chinese companies won’t want to buy here?