Can your agribusiness afford to meet your family’s needs?

Once the financial needs of the senior generation, who currently own the business, are established (see FW, 19 November 2021), the obvious question becomes: can the business generate enough to pay for these? Its ability to do so is determined by the answers to the following questions:

• Can the agribusiness generate sufficient resources to finance these needs while still meeting its own capital requirements?

• Will lenders, suppliers and other equity holders allow existing credit relationships to shift to the new ownership team without the personal guarantees from the senior generation?

• Is the successor generation willing to suppress its own financial ambitions so that the needs of the older generation can be