# 190 - Are Your Business Structures Impeding Your Farm Business’s Success? with Andy Fenton

A good season can hide a lot. So can a strong balance sheet. But performing well on the surface does not always mean the business is built on the right foundation.

Risk builds quietly. Options narrow over time. And by the time most farm owners recognise it, they have less room to move than they thought.

In this episode, Jeremy sits down with Andy Fenton, Managing Director of Fenton Financial, who brings more than 20 years of experience across financial planning, funds management and investment banking, to unpack a confronting but important idea:

It can be our business structures that kill our farm businesses.

Not all at once. Not dramatically. But over time, through outdated structures, poor protection, limited leverage, unnecessary tax inefficiency, and too much control sitting with the bank.

Andy explains why so many farming businesses are still operating in structures that were inherited, kept because they were simple, or never reviewed as the business grew. He talks through what can go wrong when land, machinery and trading operations are tied together in the wrong way, and why that can leave farming families more exposed than they realise.

We cover:

why outdated structures can quietly hold a farm business back

the risks of having land and trading activities sitting together

how tax averaging and poor structuring can limit flexibility

why banks can gain too much control when security is not set up well

how better structures can improve protection, succession and wealth creation