Author: Cara Johnson

For original founders, managing director Luke Grant and operations manager Mal Edinger, it has been an interesting ride since the 100 per cent Australian owned company began from humble beginnings in 1996.

Changes in their employment conditions at Elders prompted the duo to branch out on their own into the world of private wool buying, focusing on growers around York, Katanning and Albany.

After years of paying thousands of dollars in rent, Grant and Edinger found a block on Barrington Street in Bibra Lake and built their own store, a permanent home for Westcoast, moving in in January 2000.

This move corresponded with a recent shift in their business model, whereby they expanded their private wool buying focus into offering growers the opportunity to sell their wool at auction.

Renowned wool auctioneer Brad Faithfull joined the Westcoast team and the business set about building on its handling of the WA wool market share, which has grown from about 1 per cent to now accounting for about 20 per cent.

ESTABLISHING a finance section to offer clients a full suite of services is next on Westcoast Wool & Livestock’s growth plan and it has recruited a top man for the job.

Geoff Geary, who headed Elders’ state and national banking and finance teams for more than seven years and most recently was WA finance manager for RuralCo Ltd, joined Westcoast Wool & Livestock last month to set up the section.

“We are looking at establishing finance options for our clients and offering a full suite of financial products that will help them grow,” Mr Geary, who is Westcoast Wool & Livestock’s new finance manager, said this week.

“Up until now Westcoast Wool & Livestock has offered standard business terms of credit to its clients, but now, in line with its own business growth, it plans to offer them a complete range of financial services.

“My job is helping to set that up,” he said.

Mr Geary has 25 years’ experience in banking and agrifinance and maintains a strong industry network.

He said he is currently talking to established banks about potential third-party provider relationships for some of Westcoast Wool & Livestock’s proposed new services.

Some of these include a 12-month livestock trading facility, up to five-year breeding and restocker facilities, as well as traditional finance products like overdrafts and term loans.

Mr Geary also plans to offer Westcoast Wool & Livestock clients financial review consultations.

Raised in Perth, he gained early experience in agribusiness finance working at or managing Westpac branches in Albany, York and Narrogin.

He was ANZ agribusiness relationships manager and then state agribusiness manager for almost six years before joining Elders and Rural Bank as WA zone banking manager, helping develop and implement a livestock financing mechanism nationally in that role.

With Elders Mr Geary moved to Adelaide head office as national livestock finance manager before returning to WA in March last year to join RuralCo and its WA subsidiary Primaries of WA just before the merger with Landmark to form Nutrien Ag Solutions was announced.

Now into his 58^th year in the industry, Rob jokes that he’s been recycled a couple of times and most recently has been rejuvenated by the energy of young, up-and-coming WA company, Westcoast Wool & Livestock.

“With a great leadership team and a growing number of young staff, Westcoast has a really strong brand and it’s getting stronger,’’ Rob says.

“As the wool business has grown, producers have wanted the company to get involved with their livestock and it’s a growing force in the livestock industry.’’

He says he is once again enjoying building on the relationships with growers and working with other “comrades’’ across the company to support producers. He is particularly assisting farmers throughout the Denmark, Walpole and surrounding areas.

Raised in Brunswick, Rob followed the family bloodline into Goldsbrough Mort, starting as an office boy in Bunbury at the age of 15 in 1962.

He has worked with a number of livestock companies throughout the South West, mainly based from Mount Barker since the 1970s and now at Walpole. There were also stints with a couple of abattoirs in between his time on the rails.

Rob was the first Elders cattle assessor for CALM in WA and while he supports the AuctionsPlus system today, he says he’s still a “saleyard fan’’.

Over the journey, Rob says the swings in the sheep industry have been particularly strong to observe, and with numbers now significantly reduced and greater areas devoted to cropping in the Lower Great Southern.

“I have seen a few lows in the sheep market – the drought in ’72-73; in ’82 at Boyup Brook we were selling sheep for $1 a head; and then in 1990 we had the flock reduction scheme and growers were shooting their sheep. We were selling heavy wethers for $2 a head. The same sheep today are worth $200,’’ he says.