Having failed to sell two of the collapsed managed investment scheme group's three major properties at auction last month, McGrathNicol has bowed to the need to muster the livestock they control before looking to dispose of the stations again.

With the dry season now in full swing, herding the cattle for sorting and processing has taken priority on Wrotham Park in northern Queensland and Moola Bulla station in Western Australia. Both properties will now remain in Great Southern's ownership until the next big wet, due in November.

The properties, which passed into the receivers' hands when the group called in administrators in May, were put up for sale by Great Southern's previous management earlier this year in a desperate bid to cut the $600 million of debt owed to its bankers.

McGrathNicol decided to stick to the original June auction timetable in order to recover a quick hit of money for the lenders.

But only one of the properties, Chudleigh Park in north Queensland, sold.

It was bought by cattleman Peter Camm for $28 million - $500,000 less than what Great Southern paid for the station in 2006. Mr Camm, a well-known landowner, sold two major Northern Territory stations last year for $72.5 million. But Wrotham Park, acquired by Great Southern for $53.5 million and Moola Bulla for $30 million, were both passed in at auction after bids from the former Packer-family-owned Consolidated Pastoral Holdings failed to meet the reserves.

They would have been the first major purchases of Consolidated Pastoral since the company was bought by the British private equity player Terra Firma earlier this year. Consolidated Pastoral offered $43 million for Wrotham Park and $25 million for Moola Bulla.

The company remains firm favourites to end up owning both stations but subsequent negotiations failed to reach an agreed price with the receivers.

A spokeswoman for McGrathNicol said the receivers would wait until early next year before putting the stations back on the market.