Tired of retirement, Jack and Lonnie looked for opportunity and involvement elsewhere. The family ranch is running just fine, and the grown children are keeping the legacy alive there in Waco. In the course of their search, they discover Uruguay, where beef ranching had fallen on hard times, and Land is dirt cheap (No pun intended) because of a US embargo of Uruguayan beef. Over the years, they had learned that their main competitor for beef was China and planned to use that knowledge to build a small part of the Uruguayan Beef economy.
In the past, , China would buy anything that even resembled a cow. With a population in excess of 1.4 billion, they might be able to sell them a cow or two. They negotiated a contract with a land broker and flew down to inspect a tract of land already in beef just barely hanging on, gauchos still on the land. The land was large and required a helicopter to survey, not a problem for Jack and Lonnie.
They were pleased but kept their poker faces and struck a really good deal on the land. The owner had no children and just wanted 'out'. Nikki, Carmen, Juanita, Junior, and Ronald moved to Uruguay and started building a relationship with China and building the herd. They kept the good heifers for breeding and sold off all the rest. Flush with money from the sale of the Uranium mining land and a $300 million letter of credit from Eloise's bank, they started to build better housing for the gauchos and themselves, a 6500-foot runway and hangar and a heliport.
The beef cattle were cheap since the embargo and Lonnie, Jack, Junior and Ronald haunted every cattle sale in Uruguay, buying every feeder calf that was available and potentially a breeder.
Tired of retirement, Jack and Lonnie looked for opportunity and involvement elsewhere. The family ranch is running just fine, and the grown children are keeping the legacy alive there in Waco. In the course of their search, they discover Uruguay, where beef ranching had fallen on hard times, and Land is dirt cheap (No pun intended) because of a US embargo of Uruguayan beef. Over the years, they had learned that their main competitor for beef was China and planned to use that knowledge to build a small part of the Uruguayan Beef economy.
In the past, , China would buy anything that even resembled a cow. With a population in excess of 1.4 billion, they might be able to sell them a cow or two. They negotiated a contract with a land broker and flew down to inspect a tract of land already in beef just barely hanging on, gauchos still on the land. The land was large and required a helicopter to survey, not a problem for Jack and Lonnie.
They were pleased but kept their poker faces and struck a really good deal on the land. The owner had no children and just wanted 'out'. Nikki, Carmen, Juanita, Junior, and Ronald moved to Uruguay and started building a relationship with China and building the herd. They kept the good heifers for breeding and sold off all the rest. Flush with money from the sale of the Uranium mining land and a $300 million letter of credit from Eloise's bank, they started to build better housing for the gauchos and themselves, a 6500-foot runway and hangar and a heliport.
The beef cattle were cheap since the embargo and Lonnie, Jack, Junior and Ronald haunted every cattle sale in Uruguay, buying every feeder calf that was available and potentially a breeder.