Rupert Murdoch takes on ranching

Jan 04, 2022

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch buys cattle ranch in Montana in the largest such deal in the state’s history.

From media mogul to farmer, billionaire continues his climb upwards.
In the largest ranch deal in Montana history. Rupert Murdoch, 90, and his wife, Jerry, purchased a 340,000 acre ranch in southwest Montana, near Yellowstone National Park.

The deal—which happened this past December—is for the property known as Beaverhead Ranch, and was purchased from Matador Cattle Co., a subsidiary of Koch Industries for about US$200-million (~CDN$255-million).

Koch Industries was founded by Fred Koch, who founded the crude-oil-gathering business that grew into Koch Industries. He purchased the ranch about seven decades previous.

Murdoch—owner of HarperCollins, the Wall Street Journal, and hundreds of other well-known media enterprises—said he had been looking for a ranch property for over a year.

He added that he was “privileged to assume ownership of this beautiful land” and that along with anticipating spending time at the ranch, will enhance the commercial cattle business and its conservation assets.

Video: Learning to Wrench From Dad the Hard Way

Harvest is a week out and the farm picked this week to fall apart. The truck needs a battery, the barn curtain's got a problem, and the corn and beans are telling us we're out of time to get it all fixed.

So it's a full day of wrenching. Tork supervises while I get the truck back running, then we're out at the hog barn where one rusted up part has the whole curtain system hung up. Ladder work, cable work, and a little dad-and-son disagreement about the right way to do it. We close it out walking the fields, shelling beans and checking corn, because whether everything's fixed or not, harvest starts when harvest starts.

Chapters: 00:00 Everything breaks the week before harvest 01:00 Tork supervises while I fix the truck 12:30 Out to the barn to find the curtain problem 14:30 One rusty part hung up the whole curtain 20:00 Running the curtain cable from the ladder 24:00 Walking the beans and corn before harvest 26:30 Wrapping up

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