Category: Business

With generational ties to the land and a degree in Animal science, Tim has lived and breathed agribusiness for all of his working life. Tim has been instrumental in establishing BOQ’s agribusiness team, with a focus on larger, higher quality transactions. In this role Tim has also been responsible for managing BOQ’s funding relationship with StockCo’s Australian business. Tim’s now been appointed as Stockco’s Chief Operating Officer, to continue the growth of Stockco’s business in Australia with specialist focus on enhancing specific distribution channels and targeting new business in the corporate sector.

Welcome to the team Tim!

1. You’ve had a successful career in agribusiness, how did you get there and what have been some of the highlights?

My passion for rural Australia is a long-dated affair and thanks to my mother’s side of the family who owned sheep stations in far western Queensland. This passion lead me into a University degree at UQ Gatton studying Animal Science. When social and rugby commitments allowed it, my focus at Uni was the study of animal production systems, pastures and rangelands. During uni, I’d been working part time for a rural merchandiser in Toowoomba who was affiliated with Landmark. Unsure where I was headed after completing my degree they offered me a full-time gig, so I ran with it. It was here I first crossed paths with StockCo’s CEO Richard Brimblecombe who at the time was working for Landmark.

I moved across to work directly for Landmark and was lucky to experience some great opportunities travelling right across north and western QLD. I moved into the rural finance division at Landmark. I had found myself doing something I truly enjoyed and was very passionate about – banking farmers and graziers to achieve their financial, business and personal goals.

As the GFC unfolded, I followed Richard across to CBA and relocated to Roma. Banking has moved me around a lot, and given me the opportunity to meet some fantastic people and business operators. This would have to be a highlight for me. It was on one of these moves where I met my wife – better make that a highlight!

I think a large part of any success has been driven by the people I have been fortunate enough to work with. I’ve had great mentors, colleagues and friends that have supported me through what has been both challenging and rewarding times thus far!

 

2. What role do you see StockCo playing in the agri-finance sector?

StockCo has one purpose – strategic finance solutions for sheep and cattle producers and therefore has a deep understanding of these sectors and their markets. It is with this understanding that StockCo operates in a different manner to traditional financiers or mainstream banks. StockCo becomes an enabler.

This positions StockCo well as the changing tide in capital markets develops. It is becoming more and more prevalent, documented and discussed that the agrifinance sector, and banking in general, is set for change. Ownership models, farming practices, seasonal challenges and technology are forcing people to think differently about how they finance their businesses.

Next generation farmers are proving to be highly productive and successful but often light on capital. StockCo can really assist in this market.

As an agribanker, I have witnessed first-hand instances where StockCo has enabled a grazier to expand their operations by buying the neighbouring property, directing all available capital to the acquisition and/or development, and then utilising StockCo to ramp up livestock numbers immediately to a capacity that creates profitability.

We are witnessing more instances of farmers and graziers choosing to lease instead of own land. A trading bank will then typically struggle to finance these operators working capital or trading accounts. StockCo is a perfect solution in these instances where the grazier is a proven operator.

In the corporate market, StockCo offers a unique off-balance-sheet source of capital that allows a business that is rationing internal sources of capital, to access the capital it needs to fund development or expansion programs on terms that match the business requirements.

3. What prompted you to make the move from a senior role in one of Australia’s regional banks to StockCo?

This was both a very difficult, but very easy decision for me….. and I’ll try and explain that complete contradiction! BOQ was a fantastic place to work, with great people, and I had been pivotal in the creation of their Agribusiness division over the last 5 years. BOQ has a similar ethos to StockCo in that they are all about their customer. The customer is at the centre of everything you do. It was an exciting and rewarding place which made leaving difficult. However, it is through BOQ that I was introduced to StockCo as BOQ have a wholesale funding facility with StockCo. So I have a very deep insight into every aspect of StockCo and this made the decision easy.

The points I made earlier around StockCo’s sole purpose being cattle and sheep makes it a very niche and nimble operator. Whilst StockCo has robust systems, procedures and policies, it is a business that is not distracted by a myriad of complex business units, systems, products, compliance and regulation. It really is a very focused business. It truly aims at exceeding the expectations of their clients and I am continually surprised at the depth of knowledge and understanding StockCo has of the livestock industry and how this is then applied to assisting livestock producers.

As a throwaway comment, I am also excited about the data associated with the Australian Livestock market that StockCo is capturing as part of their standard operations. As this data pool continues to grow, it has the potential to help both StockCo and other industry bodies refine products and processes to benefit numerous industry participants.

 

4. What do hope to achieve in your role as Chief Operating Officer for StockCo?

As COO, I have been tasked to assist the executive team, and in particular, Richard as Australian CEO, to keep growing the Australian business. I will be predominantly focused on enhancing a few specific distribution channels and targeting new business in the corporate sector. My role will also focus on assisting the executive team identify strategic opportunities, product enhancement, new productive development and contributing to the funding strategy and funder relationships.

StockCo is a dynamic business run by dynamic people. It will be all hands-on-deck and I am absolutely certain there will be no dull moments!

Personally, I’d like to be able to look back in 5 years’ time and know I’ve been a pivotal part in building a business that is the leader in its field of Livestock Finance across Australia and New Zealand.

5. StockCo has a rather unique approach to distribution of its products and services. Tell us about StockCo’s approach and the rationale behind it.

StockCo definitely is unique in distribution, which is a large contributor to its success. We enjoy a very strong relationship with our key distribution partners Elders and Ruralco, who provide StockCo with access to some 800 locations right across regional Australia. Having worked both in banking and in rural agency, I can attest to the very entrenched relationship a grazier has with livestock agent. StockCo’s product sits very firmly in the toolkit of the livestock managers and agri-finance managers who work for Elders and Ruralco.

StockCo also enjoys formal distribution agreements with other key large successful private agencies and independent service providers, with an important provider being Sprout Ag.

These firms are preferred by StockCo as they share the ethos of the client being at the centre of everything we collectively do. By aligning ourselves with similar firms, we mutually benefit – their clients receive the market leading StockCo product and StockCo gains access to their network of clients. In leveraging these networks via these established distribution partners, StockCo can access a broad network of skilled and knowledgeable relationship managers on the ground whilst continuing to reinvest in our systems, products and infrastructure to maintain our position as market leader in our field. It would be impossible for StockCo to replicate or achieve such a reach without this alignment.

Learn more about the StockCo team here. 

 

When talking agribusiness or farming with StockCo Australia’s CEO, Richard Brimblecombe, you’ll witness a true passion and youthful exuberance from a person who truly loves what he does and who he does it for. He’s spent the past five years heading up the Australian opperation of agrifinance business StockCo. In that time StockCo has seen a steady increase in its customer base on both sides of the Tasman and, as Richard talks about below, the future of the industry is looking incredibly exciting.

Tell us a little about yourself, your background and how you came to be the CEO at Stock Co.

My family had irrigation, dry land farming and grazing interests in southern Qld. After working on the family properties for a period of time I pursued a career in agribusiness, working in senior roles at Suncorp, Namoi Cotton, Landmark and CBA.

I met the founder and majority owner of StockCo’s Australian business whilst I was at CBA. I immediately fell in love with StockCo’s business model and could see a huge opportunity for StockCo to assist livestock producers by providing a new and innovative source of capital that wasn’t available from Australia’s banks. I was also drawn to the customer-centric culture and “can do” attitude that was evident across the entire team at StockCo. It was clear this was a professional organisation with an incredibly strong culture that put the customer at the centre of everything it does. I immediately wanted to be part of it and was delighted when I was offered the role as the CEO of StockCo’s Australian business.

I’ve been CEO of StockCo’s Australian business now for a little over five years. That period of time seems to have passed in a heartbeat. We now have well over 1,000 customers nationally, formal distribution agreements with Elders, Sprout Ag and Ruralco, and close working relationships with many independent agents.

It’s been a real privilege and a pleasure to develop StockCo’s Australian business and to be part of such a committed and customer focused team. The most rewarding part for me personally is that we’ve been able to help so many customers generate improved returns from their livestock businesses by providing the capital required to fully stock their existing business or to fund new business opportunities.

Can you explain the relationship between Stock Co, a client and their bank?

This is an important question because it goes to the heart of StockCo’s business philosophy. Firstly, StockCo is not a market disrupter like, for example, Uber.

StockCo’s focus is to enhance our customers’ relationship with their bank rather than disrupt it. We only provide funding for livestock. We don’t provide term loans, overdrafts, equipment finance or transaction banking services. Therefore we don’t compete with banks. We structure our security arrangements so that we don’t interfere with the security arrangements already in place between our customer and their bank. StockCo focuses on clients who enjoy a good working relationship with their bank, but who may not be able to access all of the funding they require to fully stock their existing livestock enterprise or to fund expansion plans. Our focus is to provide the additional capital that our customers require, but that which their bank may not be able to approve for them.

This enables our customers to fully stock their existing properties or feedlots or enables them to purchase or lease additional properties and direct bank funding to ongoing property development. This translates into a win : win situation for both our customers and their banks. StockCo’s philosophy is to work in with customers and their banks so that everyone wins.

What trends are you seeing in Australia at the moment?

Currently, we are in a positive part of the commodity price cycle and StockCo is assisting our customers to make the most of the current good prices. Australia enjoys providence as a clean, green producer of high-quality food products. This should lead to sustained demand for our produce for the longer term from premium markets.

On a more general level, Australian livestock producers are right on the edge of a transformational technology revolution. We see huge opportunities at the moment across a broad spectrum of areas, from livestock genetics, plant and pasture genetics, to enhancements in nutrition, management and husbandry techniques. Right now, casting our eye over the horizon, we are excited about the concept of virtual fences and real-time tracking of livestock movements.

We will be watching these developments with interest as they have the potential to unleash tremendous productivity gains. Livestock producers are able to access more and more information on their computer or on their phone, meaning access to reliable and fast internet connections are becoming vital. This is translating into improved information flows, resulting in better management decisions and improved risk management. We think there is great scope for producers to increase the intensity of their operations, whilst simultaneously strengthening the sustainability of their businesses.

It’s an incredibly exciting time and we are delighted to be playing a role in assisting our customers to take advantage of the emerging opportunities.

From your experience what are the most common difficulties farmers experience and how does StockCo help them?

Livestock prices have improved significantly over the past three years. This has resulted in improved cash flows for livestock producers. We see many producers are not running their livestock operations at full capacity because they have struggled to access the capital to fund the increased cost of the livestock.

Working capital has been tied up in a significantly higher value of livestock on hand and many producers are carrying less than optimal numbers of stock for no other reason than it has been difficult to access sufficient capital to fund the livestock. So just at the time where producers have a tremendous opportunity to maximise revenue flows, they are finding it difficult to access the capital to fund the livestock that will generate those improved cash flows.

StockCo provides the capital solution that allows clients to maximise income from their livestock operation at a time when profitability is at historically very high levels. This can, in turn, enable producers to accelerate property development programs and bring forward stronger cash flows.

What else should we know about StockCo?

Many people don’t realise that StockCo has been around since 1995. We tend to be viewed as a new market entrant, however, we have been operating continuously servicing livestock markets in Australia and New Zealand for 22 years. Whilst we have been operating in Australia for a long time we made a conscious decision in 2014 to pivot our focus to growing the Australian business and we have experienced a lot of growth in the past three years, however, our fundamental business model has been operating for a long time.

Learn more about the StockCo team here.