Farmworks Australia CEO is planning to challenge the large players in the agribusiness sector.
RICK Moody is an experienced numbers man with strong links to the land.
The newly appointed Farmworks Australia chief comes to the helm of the Western Australian-based specialist rural services company with his corporate and financial skills shaped in major agribusiness and a clear understanding of what it means to be a farmer.
Mr Moody takes the reins as the listed company aims to become a bigger player in a world it believes needs a huge lift in food production by 2050 as arable land declines, populations increase and developing nations – particularly China and India – become more wealthy.
Mr Moody will draw on his rural roots and his professional background as a bean counter and a specialist in corporate restructuring to help him expand Farmworks – a smaller player in a market dominated by companies including Elders, Landmark and Ruralco.
The company, which listed on the Australian Securities Exchange in March last year, is actively planning to expand its business and services in other states and might bring in more capital through a cornerstone investor.
“The company needs to be recapitalised, which has always been the strategy. This could include bringing in a cornerstone investor, something the board is considering,” Mr Moody says, ahead of board meetings in Perth this week.
Listed investor Charter Pacific Corporation, with nearly 18 per cent, dominates Farmworks’ tightly held share register.
A refreshed Mr Moody, who spent six months last year travelling through South America with his fiancée, was appointed to the role of chief executive officer of the company late last month after a short stint as chief financial officer.
He cut his teeth on the long-held family farm in South Australia’s York Peninsula region. But after the family moved off the land, a close friend of his father steered him to a career in accountancy. He completed a degree in arts and accounting at the University of South Australia and later became a chartered accountant.
After working at accounting firm Coopers & Lybrand in Adelaide, Mr Moody joined cement supplier Adelaide Brighton as a financial controller where, he says, he picked up valuable experience in corporate restructuring. He played a role in the company’s asset disposal program and re-alignment in the late 1990s.
New challenges and a desire to work in the agribusiness sector drew him to Elders, where he worked for eight years as chief financial officer until he resigned in 2007.
At Elders, Mr Moody says he helped lead the agribusiness’s rapid expansion into rural banking, insurance and the establishment of the Hifert joint venture with then chief Greg Hunt, who was later ousted by former Futuris boss Les Wozniczka.
“I really enjoyed my time at Elders and believed that the management team was correctly focused on what really mattered in the business, which was growing market share and addressing the cost base, something I think we did pretty well under Greg Hunt,” Mr Moody says.
“Elders was a high-cost operator and costs needed to be addressed year in and year out. In Greg’s final year (2007), Elders produced a contribution in excess of $100 million to the Futuris group.”
Mr Moody says Mr Wozniczka adopted a more radical approach to the business and pushed Mr Hunt aside because he wanted a new management team.
“Les’s approach was always that he wanted radical changes to the cost base of Elders. Greg believed it had to be done in a more controlled way – any other way would result in massive losses in market share eventually,” he says.
“It was Les’s view that management needed to take a risk.”
Mr Moody resigned from Elders two days after Mr Hunt walked out the door; several other executives followed later.
He says his core management style is about getting most out of the people who work for him, and empowering them.
“As a manager, you are only as good as the people who work for you,” says Mr Moody, who sees himself as a team player focused on working co-operatively through delegation and accountability.