About Us - Share Farming & Equity Managers

Mission Statement

History

The major investment by Waibury has been the ownership of share farming and dairy farm investments throughout New Zealand and predominantly in the Canterbury region. As Waibury has expanded and secured on farm equity managers, it has undergone several evolutions. These evolutions have been necessary in order to maximise returns to investors and ensure ease of returning funds to investors when required.

When Waibury commenced it had 8 shareholders of which 6 remain. Waibury share farming has, at times, been a victim of its own success. In the Group’s infancy the growth experienced in the first 2 years was sufficient to allow one of the shareholders to withdraw their funding and purchase their own farm in the North Island. A year later a second shareholder purchased the farm he was managing from the group. Farm ownership is something that they may not have been able to achieve without the returns they achieved with Waibury.

The share farming group has also taken on new equity on several different occasions, to replace equity withdrawn by other investors, and purchase additional farm land, along with diversifying to the Waikato and in Chile. The number of shareholder groups in Waibury Farms Limited now totals eleven.

Waibury officially commenced its operations on 1 June 2000. At that time it consisted of the Westhaven, Thorndale and Dalry Farms. The latter two properties have since been sold to fund the acquisition of more properties in the Culverden basin.

To generate returns for shareholders Waibury has used three basic concepts:

• Capital development – Waibury has sought to generate long term increases in the wealth of investors through capital gains in the value of dairy farms due to an increase in productive performance.
• Superior management – on farm equity managers operate in the top ten percent in the district in which they operate.
• Leverage – as land has increased in value, the company has sought to use that prudent leveraging to fund expansion and to purchase new farms.

Waibury takes a medium to long term view of its investments. In purchasing new farms, Waibury is careful to identify farms that it considers to be either undervalued, under productive or under developed and in identifying on farm investors / equity managers that the directors believe have the ability to operate the farm to its full potential. Waibury increases the long-term productivity of the farms that it invests in through prudent capital development. The development work undertaken by Waibury has the following effects:

•  It maximises production from each farm, thereby maximising cash flows.
•  Maximising each farm’s production also has the effect of maximising the expected payout to that farm and its resulting capital value.

The Waibury Group intends to continue with its business philosophies into the future. The directors’ believe that the specific business strategies adopted by Waibury Farms Limited have allowed the company to derive significant capital gains in excess of those derived through general increases in land values. Although this will not occur in each and every year, generally in the long term New Zealand farmers have been well rewarded. The Waibury shareholders are in the main a group of long term investors and have a philosophy of sound expansion of the business for long term growth.

Ethos

The Group since its inception has a philosophy of creating modern well spec'd dairy farms. As a result these properties consistently perform at a high level. The infrastructure, facilities and management of the group attracts high calibre farm employees. The group operates a model that incorporates key staff as equity operators on specific properties. This further drives operational and financial performance. A number of the equity operators have risen through the ranks of employees to be current equity operators.