Champion New Zealander: A Tribute to Ian Elliott, 1946-2019

I first met Ian Elliott when he came on The Icehouse AGRI3 (agribusiness) programme. Immediately I knew we had someone who knew more than us all combined. We connected as two men, the same age within days, lovely daughters and 40 odd years of marriage.

Ian came from a line of Christian New Zealanders who committed themselves to growing significant land-based businesses to enable them to serve their Christian belief by donating all profits to charity.

In today's world of a growing sense of doing good before making money, Ian and his colleagues were ahead of their time.

Pictured Above: Ian Elliott from ‘In Trust: A New Zealand Story’ by Ian Hunter

Their initiative was triggered in 1951 by central North Island farmers, John Baldwin and Matt Alexander who took an idea of business for good by American Le Touneau and converting it to New Zealand farming and societal needs.

These savvy farmers learnt as they went, all the time scaling themselves up to provide ever increasing money to the needy. Their methods include land use conversion from forestry to farming, scaled up operations, repeatable lean practices, excellent people selection, completely reliable stakeholder management, all the time increasing owners bound by a common purpose.

Throughout their growth, the ownership was primarily contained within three principal trusts, Longview, Lichfield and Hillview.

Ian began his journey contributing to the business and purpose in 1975 when he and his brother Bruce formed the Arohanui Trust. His energy for risk taking and drive for the purpose first showed up in 1978 when faced with wanting to buy a 72-hectare farm with only $2,000 of equity. They got the money from nowhere, which eventually got them from debt ridden to mortgage free. "The boys were off." Soon that farm was sold for a bigger farm, Lichfield Trust stepped in as a partner, another farm bought and sold, which left them buying Gorgelands farm for $2m and selling that in 2007 for $12.2m.

Subsequently Ian became Managing Director then Chair of Litchfield Lands. His reputation was established through bold and inspiring leadership, outstanding judgement, very capable negotiation, smart and simple employment and management processes. All learnt from application. Those that knew him well speak of him seeing the future, being bold in the face of opportunity, a very astute businessman, not a man to misrepresent the truth to, knowing life was all about people, could always remember a name, never let a soul down and stood for the greater cause.

Evidence of these attributes were apparent at the 1999 AGM of Lichfield where Ian challenged shareholders with bold growth goals including diversification into kiwifruit. Subsequently, Lichfield became substantial kiwifruit growers and a large shareholder of Eastpac, New Zealand's largest kiwifruit packhouse.

In 2011 the three principal Trusts recognised further growth was constrained by duplicated functions that would be better served by one good entity rather than three separate entities all doing the same thing. The three trusts consolidated their business activities into a wholly owned trading subsidiary which they named Trinity. This served to separate the charitable practices into the Trusts and the business into the trading company thereby providing clear focus for the distinct purposes. Succession issues of the three trusts were overcome, management and governance upgraded, and greater financial leverage achieved. Established in 2011, the combined assets were $90m.

The restructured group was soon active, taking advantage of Graeme Harts decision to convert his central north island forestry interests into 25 dairy farms of which Trinity Lands bought 8.
Five years since formation, Trinity Lands had grown to $300m. During the same period funds donated grew from $1.7m p.a. to $3m p.a. in 2016. Today donations are $8m.

Ian had led this successful growth as first the CEO of Trinity Lands and subsequently as Chair.

To help the reader appreciate what Ian Elliott has been key to achieving - in 2016 Trinity was one of the top ten shareholders in Fonterra and one of the largest shareholders in Zespri and Eastpac.

And as if that was not enough, in the rest of his time he chaired the Global Christian Charity for Prison Fellowship. Internationally travelling to prisons throughout the world, he interacted with prisoners and their families otherwise shunned by society. In this role he attended President Prayer Breakfasts hosted by each of President Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump.

Truly a New Zealand champion.