BILLINGS, Mont. – A legendary Montana cattle company stressed with drought, poor cash flow and debt has closed a chapter in its history with a three-day sale that drew buyers from across North America.
Leachman Cattle Co. at Billings put up for sale its elite Red and Black Angus herds, embryos and Quarter horses to pay mounting debts caused by business deals that turned sour, four years of drought and a slumping slaughter beef market.
“This is another outfit to feel hard times,” said auctioneer Curt Rogers at the sale.
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The cattle sale brought in around $4.5 million on 2,500 lots of mainly females, their calves, embryo lots and some bulls.
The top selling cow, a Black Angus female, sold for $77,500 during the Sept. 14-16 sale.
The first day offered an elite group of registered Quarter horses where buyers from across North America selected geldings and foals. No brood mares were sold. The high seller was a blue roan gelding for $16,000.
The family headed by Jim Leachman came to Montana 30 years ago after a longtime association with the New York cattle operation, Ankony Farms.
In 1970, the family moved to Montana and Leachman started to breed Red Angus cattle.
At that time the operation was worth about $2 million. All was lost when stock market and oil company investments failed. They recovered, only to face another challenge at the end of the 1970s but managed to stay in business.
At the same time they started a bull sale, offering selected and genetically tested Angus bulls. The first sale 30 years ago offered 100 bulls and eventually grew into the world’s largest private sale with more than 2,500 bulls and females sold over a four-day period.
A composite beef animal was developed, a feedlot opened and a meat company initiated in the last decade. These ventures have also been dissolved. The company once had business interests in South America, Australia and New Zealand.
