Friends,
John Malone bought the Bell Ranch, in the WSJ today (see below). He seems to be on a property buying binge. In a recent interview, he stated that his wife had moved all of her cash reserves into Canada and Australia banks, and that their property in Maine has 18 miles on the Canadian Border where they could slip into Canada if they had to. Pretty interesting for the head of a major American Corp.
This is a very smart and very consevative fellow who just made the largest single land purchase in 60 years in the United States. He paid less than $85,000,000.00 for a property originally on the market for $115,000,000.00 and got an extra 40,000 acres thrown in. I’m guessing he puts a substantial portion of the ranch in a conservation easement and lets the government pay for a 1/3 to 1/2 the cost through tax deductions!
Agricultural and ranch land may just be the best investment available in today’s troubled times.
Go here for more Northern New Mexico Ranch Properties: http://www.santafereal-estate.com/NorthernNewMexicoRanchesForSale.html
- Wall Street Journal, 8/20/10
By JULIET CHUNG
Media mogul John Malone closed this week on a 290,100-acre ranch whose original asking price in 2007 was $115 million.
More recently, the working cattle ranch, known as Bell Ranch, was listed for $83 million with 40,000 acres added; they were included in Mr. Malone’s purchase. The Liberty Media chairman, whose media interests include QVC and investments in Time Warner Cable and concert promoter Live Nation Entertainment, purchased through a limited-liability company he formed with his wife, Leslie, records show.
The property, 150 miles east of Santa Fe, has a more than 10,000-square-foot, eight-bedroom main house and a pool, an airstrip and a tennis court. Large enough to have its own zip code at one point, it also has barns and other structures, and the Canadian River runs through it. Mr. Malone has bought land in Maine, Colorado, Wyoming and elsewhere in New Mexico. He declined to comment through a representative.
The brokers declined to discuss details. Patrick Bates of Bates Sanders Swan Land Co. represented the sellers and Ron Morris of Ranch Marketing Associates, Mr. Malone. Mr. Bates said in a statement that the buyer, who was unidentified in the message, had indicated “strong interest in maintaining” and improving the property as a cattle ranch.
UPDATE from Forbes on Line -Start of a BOOM
Aug. 18 2010 – 11:22 am | 1,852 views | 1 recommendation | 4 comments
Is the Recession over?If the sale of vast western ranches are an indicator, maybe it is.
For the past few years the story of the western ranch market was the huge amount of money that was sitting on the sidelines, waiting on the economy. That story is over.
Yesterday the 290,100-acre Bell Ranch, located in northeastern New Mexico, was sold. It had been listed for $83 million. It is believed to be the largest sale of deeded land in the American west in the past 60 years. The buyer is rumored to be cable billionaire and Liberty Media chairman, John Malone.
The Bell Ranch is an iconic western property, originally granted in 1824. The ranch can carry 5,000 grazing animals, has excellent hunting for trophy mule deer and has its own airstrip.
But the greater significance of this sale is that it may herald the beginning of a ranch boom, similar to the one in the 1980s that was kick-started by Ted Turner’s $20 million purchase of the Flying D Ranch in Montana.
There are some topnotch properties out there. Software billionaire Tom Siebel has put his N Bar Ranch, located 90 miles north of Billings, on the market for $45 million.
My favorite is the G Hanging Dash in Twin Bridges, Montana. The 80,000-acre property is located at the confluence of four great trout rivers—the Ruby, Big Hole, Beaverhead and Jefferson. It also has four spring creeks. I’ll just need to come up with $32.5 million.
