General News
2 February, 2022
Rupanyup brothers look to retirement
THE 50 year old service Tylers Rural supplies and Hardware stores will be transitioned and taken over by Nutrien Ag.
THE 50 year old service Tylers Rural supplies and Hardware stores in Rupanyup, Murtoa and Stawell will be transitioned and taken over by Nutrien Ag as of February 2.
The hardware and rural services businesses have been in the area since 1989 when Adrian Tyler purchased the Rupanyup business where he worked as a young man.
Mr Tyler and his two brothers, Terry and Kelvin, worked together to buy two more businesses in Stawell and Murtoa when the Rupanyup business became too much for one store.
Mr Tyler, the businesses director and Rupanyup store manager, said that the transition has come as the three brothers plan to move on from the business.
“We’re all getting pretty close to retirement,” he said.
“We’ve got no succession plans like children, we’ve got no one coming up.
“It’s getting to the point where, if we don’t make the transition to moving the business and breaking up the (brother) partnership, then if anything happens to one of us, it gets too hard.”
The business name Tylers Rural will be retired as part of Nutrien taking over the business and each store will run under the Nutrien brand name.
Mr Tyler said that the business and its services would not change as it comes under new ownership.
“We’re really big supporters of the community out here, we want this business in the transition to keep that service that we give the town,” he said.
“Being a small town, we can’t afford to lose any of our services.”
As well as maintaining community support, Mr Tyler said that it was important to the business to keep the staff after the transition.
“We’ve got a good team that mesh together, a very good team,” he said.
“It’s fine being in a partnership but if you haven't got all the staff to do the jobs the store wouldn’t run, it’d be like a car without a wheel.”
Mr Tyler said that the company had been working on the transition with Nutrien Ag for approximately five years.
“We’ve been a Nutrein member for about 30 years and that was the obvious choice: they knew our business and the ins,” he said.
“We gave Nutrien the first option as we tried to transition out of the business and it was sort of on and off for a while.
“They thought it was too hard at the start because it’s hard to employ people as managers in rural areas.
“They’ve appointed (all three brothers) as managers for the businesses … we’ll stay on at this stage and stick around for maybe one to two years.”
Nutrien Ag will also take on the hardware side of the business in Rupanyup and Murtoa after a deal was struck with the brothers.
“(Nutrien Ag) were initially interested in the agricultural part of it, not the hardware part of it, but they’ve agreed to keep it as it is because they can see how community-minded we all are and how important it is to the community,” Mr Tyler said.
“We’ve come to an arrangement with all that, they’re going to keep everything as it is and keep all the staff.”