Chapman steps down from Elders

Timaru-born businessman Stu Chapman will leave his role as managing director of the wool, livestock, insurance and farm supplies business of Elders NZ next month.

The former shareholder in Elders NZ agreed to continue working in the role during the sale and subsequent management handover of the agribusiness bought by the Carr Group last year. The family business is now operating as Carrfields.

Chapman will continue to serve as a director on the Elders Primary Wool board which extends to NZ Yarn, Wool Exports NZ and Wool Marketing Enterprises (Just Shorn) and in the same position on the Elders International NZ Live Export business board – a joint venture business with Elders Australia.

Chapman’s career with Elders NZ spans 21 years over which time it had grown to be an agribusiness leader, particularly in livestock and wool.

Carrfields Group managing director Craig Carr said the businesses formerly managed by Chapman would report to him from August 1.

Carrfields has gone from the Carr family starting out making hay bales in Mid Canterbury to a rural services company with more than $200 million in annual turnover and employing hundreds.

The family has steadily bought full or partial stakes in rural businesses in the past couple of years to raise the company to a national business extending sales overseas. Carrfields was strengthened by the purchase for an undisclosed sum of stock and station company Elders NZ, previously in a joint venture with Elders in Australia which had been divesting some of its agribusinesses.