The Australian company Heytesbury has recently agreed a deal with Dutch-based shipping company Vroon to purchase its live export subsidiary, Livestock Express.

As well as all 11 of the company’s purpose-built livestock carrying ships, Vroon is divesting 100% of its shares in Livestock Express.

Heytesbury are also acquiring the Singapore office and technical management services for third-party vessels as part of the deal.

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Included among the fleet are two ships that will be familiar to Irish farmers.

The Brahman Express and the Shorthorn Express have both carried Irish livestock.

Heytesbury is owned by the Holmes à Court family who run 165,000 head of cattle across a number of cattle stations in northern Australia, the company bought its first live export ship in 2019 and has no increased it’s capacity to service markets around the world.

Livestock Express’ fleet transports between 600,000 and 750,000 head of livestock each year.