Elders Limited

Elders Limited is an Australian-based agribusiness company that provides products such as livestock, farm supplies and grain as well as financial services to the farming community in Australia and New Zealand.

The company was founded in 1839 and through a long and complex set of mergers and divestitures the company grew to become one of the major companies in Australia with a wide variety of interests in different industries, before again reverting to its agricultural roots and becoming a supplier to the farming industry.

Elder Smith & Co was founded in 1839 in South Australia by Alexander Lang Elder as a new arm of his family's Scottish based merchant and shipping business. Its core business was a trading company and commission agent for wool and other agricultural products for sale back to Britain. Elder believed there were good business opportunities for trade out of the colony which had been newly proclaimed in December 1836.

Elder, Smith & Co should not be confused with the company now known as Elders Limited. The South Australian company Elder, Smith & Co Limited and the Victorian company Goldsbrough Mort & Co Limited where acquired by the South Australian holding company Elder Smith Goldsbrough Mort Limited in 1963. Goldsbrough, Mort & Co Limited (ACN 004045121) was then demerged in 1994 under the name of Elders Limited along with the right to use the well known trading name of "Elders". Elders Limited was acquired by Futuris Corporation Limited (ACN 004 336 636). The name was then changed to Elders Rural Services Australia Limited. Futuris Corporation Limited then changed its name to Elders Limited.