Two Australian families have bought what is considered to be the world's second-largest farming property, at more than 16,500 square kilometres.

Australian farmers and businessmen Viv Oldfield and Donny Costello have bought Clifton Hills, in South Australia's far north, under the banner of Crown Point Pastoral Company.

The property comes with 18,000 cattle and, to put it into perspective, is about 4,000 square kilometres larger than the greater Sydney region.

Mr Oldfield is a prominent race-horse trainer who owns property in the Northern Territory and South Australia, and also owns outback trucking company Tanami Transport.

South Australian and Northern Territory pastoralist Viv Oldfield (right) says Clifton Hills came on the market at the right time for him. ( Nathan Coates )

He says Clifton Hills was just the right property to buy at the right time.

"It just happened to be that it came available," Mr Oldfield said.

"I have an interest in the neighbouring Pandie Pandie Station, so I knew of Clifton Hills previously and when the opportunity came up we showed interest in it."

Mr Oldfield is no stranger to large pastoral purchases.

Clifton Hills has been bought by Crown Point Pastoral Company, which is comprised of pastoralists Viv Oldfield and Donny Costello. ( ABC Rural: Brooke Neindorf )

In April, he bought Maryvale Station in the Northern Territory for $15 million.

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In 2016, he and three other pastoralists shot to national prominence when they put in a bid for S Kidman and Co properties, which was ultimately bought by Gina Rinehart's Hancock Prospecting.

Clifton Hills was sold on a "walk-in, walk-out" basis.

Mr Oldfield says he does not have any plans to make any drastic changes to the properties' infrastructure.

Corporate vs family pastoralism

Outgoing Clifton Hills managing partner Dave Harvey says the public may be distracted by the power and wealth of foreign investors and S Kidman and Co.

"I think in the past, entities like Kidmans had tended to capture the limelight about large holdings of land and cattle by a family," Mr Harvey said.

Clifton Hills Station managing partner David Harvey says it was mainly pastoral families who were interested in buying the property. ( ABC Rural: Brooke Neindorf )

"There are a lot of families out there that have really substantial holdings of land and cattle and do it really well.

"They seem to fly under the radar and not seek a lot of publicity, but they're out there."

Mr Harvey thinks Australia's pastoral families are the ones really interested in pastoral properties, more so than corporations or foreign investors.

"I think it is these family-based businesses that are the ones out there looking for cattle properties at the moment," he said.

"There's not so much interest from the corporate sector, in fact I'd stick my neck out and say that the corporate sector is on a little bit of a divestment phase if anything.

"We see Terra Firma trying to sell their Consolidated Pastoral Company somehow, somewhere, and other corporates, which have been in the cattle business in the past 10 years, some of them are withdrawing."

Mr Harvey and Mr Oldfield declined to reveal how much Clifton Hills sold for.