MCI expands its agribusiness advisory team

Sean Stafford leads the MCI agri advisory team.

The MCI & Associates agribusiness team is highly skilled in agribusiness accounting and advisory. With decades of hands-on experience working both on and in-farm as well as positions that support the industry, MCI is passionate about the farming industry and wants to ensure its future. The team offers a focus on family and corporate governance, business strategy, intergenerational transition/business succession, red meat farm systems, deal structuring, raising capital and formation of equity partnerships, advisory, and compliance.

MCI believes privately owned New Zealand agribusinesses are facing a tidal wave of forced regulation. As such, there is a need for greater independent advisory skills to support these businesses in making good strategic decisions.

It believes the mix of advisory and accountancy works perfectly together and is excited to share that the MCI advisory team has seen recent growth with the addition of Ally Apthorp.

Ally joined MCI in June; she is a local farmer from Pahīatua and has joined MCI as an agri adviser. Ally has spent the past nine years on the farm and is the mum of three children. She has previously worked for Ravensdown and has a strong skillset in environmental planning and developing whole farm systems. Ally has a strong desire to help farmers with her knowledge of environmental factors on farm, and with farm systems to help underpin their financial performance.

Ally will be running MCI’s red meat discussion group and is also looking forward to working alongside clients to assist with obtaining bank funding. She will work closely with Sean Stafford as MCI expands its business advisory function in the Tararua region.

The team will be able to offer assistance with farm systems in the areas of:

• Developing policies to optimise the pasture and forage grown in your farm business.
• Looking at the property’s objectives. Identifying what the property needs in terms of crops and areas of intensification - current performance vs how it looks remodelled.
• Developing livestock policies to optimise the performance of your farm.
• How do policies compare currently, and do they line up with the farms’ contour, location, rainfall, topography? As well as data analysis to see the farms’ potential.
• Farm systems modelling using Farmax, Cash Manager, Farm Focus, Figured and Xero.
• Using software to investigate how a property’s current policy stacks up against what the data tells us, as well as working through a range of different scenarios. With our accounting software tools, we can identify and report on trends for year-on-year expenses and profits.
• Supporting red meat farmers to improve the physical and financial performance of the business through benchmarking business performance as well as supporting any capital requirements to bring a venture up to speed.
• Farm supervision.
• Assisting businesses with advice on budgeting and policies on an ongoing basis.

Contact the MCI agri advisory team on either 06 374 7059 or 06 376 7476, or sean@mcia.co.nz.

This editorial was first published in the Hawke’s Bay Today Ram Catalogue 2023.