Stone Axe Pastoral Australian Operations

Stone Axe Pastoral’s Operations

Stone Axe Pastoral operations are strategically located to achieve efficiencies across its functions and to service international and interstate customers. Locations are hand-selected with the following criteria in mind:
Accessibility to professional feedlot and abattoir facilities across Australia
Proven cattle breeding and grow out areas, typically at altitude and typically with high summer rainfall
Diversification to achieve reliable rainfall and feed growing seasons

Alfreda – Ebor, New South Wales

Purchased by Stone Axe Pastoral in February 2018, Alfreda is located 88km north-east of Armidale in the resource rich New England Tablelands. The region enjoys an average annual rainfall of 900mm.

Glen Alvie – Ebor, New South Wales

Purchased by Stone Axe Pastoral in June 2017, Glen Alvie is located nearby the Alfreda property and is 79km north-east of Armidale. The property is in a high rainfall belt, receiving an average annual rainfall of 1200 – 1500mm.

Cheviot Hills – Kojonup, Western Australia

Located 260km south-east of Perth, this Western Australia property has significant water entitlements with state-of-the-art infrastructure including solar pumps and mobile monitoring access. The area benefits from reliable rainfall and feed growing seasons.

Our Team

Key Management

Michael Lukin

Chairman
Michael Lukin is a Partner based in Roc Partners’ Sydney office and has 18 years of private equity and agricultural investment experience. Prior to co-founding Roc Partners, Michael was responsible for the overall management of Macquarie Group’s global private markets business. Before joining Macquarie in 2001, Michael spent over three years as an asset consultant with Towers Perrin, providing advice on investment matters and fund manager selection to superannuation funds and master trust clients. Michael holds a Bachelor of Science in Applied Mathematics with Honours from the University of Sydney, majoring in financial mathematics. He is a CFA Charter Holder and an Associate of the Institute of Actuaries of Australia.

Anna Speer

Chief Executive Officer

Anna Speer is an accomplished agribusiness executive with extensive experience leading large-scale operations, transforming supply chains, and delivering sustained business performance. She has held senior leadership roles across some of Australia’s most significant agricultural and food supply organisations, including Managing Director of Woolworths’ $3.2B red-meat business Greenstock, Chief Operating Officer at the Australian Agricultural Company, and Chief Executive Officer of AuctionsPlus.

Throughout her career, Anna has consistently delivered growth and operational transformation by integrating supply chain functions, embedding sustainability strategies, and building high-performance teams underpinned by accountability and a strong performance culture. She is widely regarded for her strategic insight, commercial acumen, and ability to execute complex change across diverse business environments.

Anna holds a Global Executive MBA, is a graduate of the Australian Rural Leadership Foundation, Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, and was awarded the Rabobank Emerging Leader Award in 2018 in recognition of her contribution to the sector. As Chief Executive Officer of Stone Axe Pastoral, Anna is responsible for leading the next phase of growth for one of Australia’s premier vertically integrated Wagyu enterprises, ensuring the business continues to deliver world-class genetics, premium beef, and sustainable value creation for its stakeholders.

Mathew Walker

Director & Founder
Mathew Walker is a generational cattle farmer and the founder of numerous public and private enterprises.
For over thirty years Mathew has served as Managing Director of his family livestock business, which was sold in part to Australia’s largest beef cattle producer the Australian Agricultural Company Limited (ASX: AAC) in 2006, described by AAC at the time as “the world’s largest and most credentialed full blood herd outside of Japan and is viewed as Australia’s premier Wagyu Business”. He remains active in the agricultural industry, with extensive family beef cattle interests in both New South Wales and Western Australia and is a known industry advocate for animal welfare.
His varied personal business interests include founding the iconic Dingo Brewing Company and Unicorn Productions, a film production company currently producing a movie based on the remarkable life of Indigenous Australian warrior, Pemulwuy.
Mr. Walker holds a Bachelor of Business from the University of Technology, Sydney.

Brad Mytton

Director
Brad Mytton is an Investment Director for Roc Partners and is responsible for the origination, recommendation and ongoing management of Asia Pacific investments, with a focus on Australian direct and co-investment strategies. Prior to joining Roc, Brad was part of a direct investment business within Macquarie’s Fixed Income Currencies & Commodities Group, investing in private companies in agriculture, energy, clean technology and retail sectors. Brad has also worked with Macquarie Capital providing investment banking advisory services to clients in the energy sector. Brad joined the Roc Partners business in 2011. Brad received his MBA from Oxford University, United Kingdom and his Bachelor of Commerce with Honours from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand.

Experts

Dr Reon Holmes

Dr Holmes is one of Australia’s leading cattle embryologists and veterinarians. Dr Holmes graduated from the University of Queensland as a fully qualified cattle veterinarian in 1989.

Dr Holmes has been involved in providing specialist bovine reproduction and veterinary services to elite cattle stud and seed-stock clients and to large clients within the commercial beef and dairy sector in Australia for the past 25 years.

Since 1993, Dr Holmes has owned Holbrook Veterinary Centre (HVC), NSW. HVC is a specialist cattle veterinary practice providing highly specialist reproductive and production services to leading Australian cattle producers, including embryo production. HVC produces more than 6000 embryos per annum and agists more than 200 active high value donors across a diverse range of cattle breeds.

Since 2006, Dr Holmes has co-owned CalfCorp Pty Ltd, Holbrook, NSW. Calfcorp is an integrated cattle artificial breeding business providing reproductive and production services to produce elite livestock for industry leading breeders and the Australian commercial beef and dairy industry. Including embryo transfer, donor management and contract breeding integrated with a large scale recipient herd to produce valuable weaned embryo transfer calves. CalfCorp has more than 3500 recipient cows and producers more than 2500 highly valuable embryo transferred calves per annum.

Since 2000, Dr Holmes worked extensively in both the Australian Beef CRC and the Dairy CRC research projects. In 2003, Dr Holmes was awarded the “Beef Improvement Association of Australia 2003 Award” for his services to the Australian beef industry.