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Agricultural finance requires deep sector knowledge and an understanding of seasonal income volatility and commodity price risk. We arrange farm purchase loans, seasonal credit facilities, water rights financing, and rural equipment loans. Alasdair's senior banking background means he knows how lenders assess rural assets, and how to position your enterprise to secure the best available terms, including interest rate hedging strategies to protect against input cost volatility.
Australian agribusiness lending has to absorb income that arrives in lumps and prices set on world markets. Lenders assess on multi-year average earnings rather than a single season, and value land on dollars per hectare and carrying capacity (DSE or livestock equivalents) as much as on comparable sales. Water is a separate, securable asset. Entitlements and allocations can be mortgaged and valued independently of the land, and in the southern Murray-Darling Basin they often represent a large share of enterprise value. The major agri lenders, being the big four plus Rabobank, Elders and specialist funders, compete hard on flexible limits, interest-only terms in drought years, and seasonal facilities that swing with the crop or turn-off cycle.
Government structure matters. Regional Investment Corporation loans offer concessional rates for drought, farm investment and succession, and Farm Management Deposits let operators shift taxable income between years. Input-cost and commodity volatility across fertiliser, fuel, interest, grain, wool and cattle can be hedged, and lenders increasingly expect a written risk-management plan. Credit teams also now weigh soil type, rainfall reliability, biosecurity exposure and, in some regions, carbon and biodiversity income. We know how each lender reads a rural balance sheet, including how they treat leased country, share-farming income, livestock as security and off-farm assets, and we package trading history, a seasonal cash-flow model and an agronomy-backed outlook, then tender so the facility fits the production calendar rather than the bank's quarterly review.
Alasdair is a former banker and Executive Manager at both Westpac and CBA, bringing decades of senior banking experience to every commercial deal. He understands exactly how lenders assess risk, structure facilities, and price commercial debt, and he uses that insider knowledge to negotiate outcomes that most brokers simply can't access. If you're looking for an adviser who has run the bank's side of the table, you've found him.