You no longer need to be a billionaire to cash in on the next China boom sector, thanks to retail king Gerry Harvey.
While consumers have picked themselves up from the spending doldrums, the billionaire obviously thought a little something extra was needed to spice up Harvey Norman's stock price and he has found just the right ingredient.
Wednesday morning, Harvey Norman announced it planned to acquire 49.9 per cent stake in Coomboona Holdings, one of Australia's largest dairy farms, for $34 million.
The retailer now doubles as a side bet on the next wave of the China boom, albeit a very modest one.
Details are scarce. The Harvey Norman press release did not even include details of the vendor.
Which is a pity because recent reports named Gerry Harvey as the buyer of the Coomboona dairy business.
And according to ASIC documents, the only company we could find under the Coomboona Holdings Pty Ltd name was registered by Gerry in November last year.
Harvey Norman was listed as the ultimate holding company. And Coomboona changed its name before Christmas to HNM Galaxy.
Harvey Norman told the Australian Shareholders Association the Coomboona stake has not been acquired from its boss.
Not that it allayed all of their concerns. "It just seems weird," said ASA spokesman, Allan Goldin.
But shareholders might have to just shrug and accept that the retail billionaire has definitely joined other Australian billionaires on the cattle bandwagon.
Gina Rinehart will soon add the 400,000 hectare Fossil Downs station - which remained in the hands of a single family for the last 133 years - to her pastoral holdings.
Kerry Stokes also elbowed aside foreign interlopers to make a return to the Kimberley cattle industry, acquiring the Napier Downs Station.
Andrew "Twiggy" Forrest and wife, Nicola, complete the trifecta of West Australian billionaires who have gone on a buying spree in the state's north and the couple announced plans to make their West Australian cattle operation organic.
Even boganaire Nathan Tinkler, having removed the final nags from his thoroughbred empire Patinack Farm, turned to cattle before calling in the administrators.
Rio Tinto runs about 24,000 head of cattle in Western Australia across the six pastoral leases - which beats Twiggy's and Rinehart's cattle empires.
Harvey Norman investors better keep in mind that this is no short term play.
New Zealand has suffered from its own commodities bust on the dairy front with world markets over-supplied on the milk front.
If dairy doesn't work, maybe Gerry will consider letting his fellow investors a side bet on his other great hobby, horse racing, by selling part of his Magic Millions operation to the retailer.
Early bird
Harvey Norman investors may have guessed something was up on Tuesday. Gerry chose the first day of spring to report he had picked up $2 million worth of shares, adding 460,000 shares to his 330 million stock pot.
De-linked
The problem with digital media is that, no matter how much you love it, it might not love you back.
LinkedIn has revealed its 'Most Viewed Professionals on LinkedIn in Australia for 2015'.
Topping our list was Telstra's chief geek Andy Penn, Freelancer.com boss Matt Barrie, also made the cut, and the fairer sex was represented by RedBalloon's Naomi Simson.
ANZ boss, Mike Smith, did not crack a mention despite becoming an evangelist for LinkedIn.
Last year he publicly announced his adoration with an article posted on LinkedIn titled: 'How I became a social media believer and why banking's future is digital'.
In the blog, Smith talks of how ANZ director, Greg Clark, encouraged him to organise an ANZ board pilgrimage to the US west coast tech gods Google, Cisco, Apple and LinkedIn.
"It was a bit of 'light bulb' moment," said Smith.
Alas, the lightbulb is looking pretty dim to his fellow LinkedIn users.
Get knotted
The whole airline thing is obviously working quite well for Qantas at the moment but the company is not resting on its laurels.
It has branched out into the fashion market with a limited edition cashmere blend scarf for $298 - which is less crazy than Harvey Norman getting into diary, we guess.
According to comments posted to Australian Business Traveller, the launch did not go down well with some of its premium customers at the business lounge in Sydney airport Wednesday morning.
"Qantas roped off a big chunk of the lounge for the launch, much to the chagrin of members and their guests," said Worldflyer90.
Got a tip? ckruger@fairfaxmedia.com.au
