About Sarnia Capital
Who we are
Sarnia Capital is a boutique wine equipment and barrel rental service, based in Tatachilla at the heart of the McLaren Vale wine region. Founded by investors with a history in the agricultural industry, we’ve spent the last 10 years helping wineries procure and finance equipment they need to operate and grow.
Meet our team
Edward Hodges
Founder and General Manager
Edward has spent almost a decade supporting wineries with the equipment necessary to produce their best product. He previously worked in finance and investment in family enterprises, and always had a strong interest in agriculture through his family farm.
After 20 years in finance, Edward saw that small businesses frequently faced challenges sourcing loans through traditional financiers. He realised they needed a straightforward, flexible solution that was designed specifically to help them, and so began Sarnia Capital.
Friendly and easy-going, Edward is far more at home with his winemaker clients than he is in the office. He loves nothing more than talking with his clients about their business and goals, before going on to find the equipment solutions that best match their needs.
Sarah Clarke
Business Administrator
When we say we handle everything from time of signing to delivery, it’s Sarah doing most of the behind-the-scenes work to make that happen.
Sarah looks after everything from our clients’ processing and ordering, to contract preparation, freight and importation. She has plenty of experience in wine industry export and logistics, so she knows how to keep the process running smoothly.
Highly organised, good under pressure, and with an impressive array of skills in her toolkit, Sarah is integral to getting our clients everything they need, when they need it.
The Sarnia Capital Story
Sarnia Capital was established 10 years ago to meet the needs of small to medium wineries recovering from the global financial crisis. With the one-size-fits-all nature of traditional lenders making it harder to procure the right equipment, we wanted to create an option that made it easy for winemakers to use equipment that best served their process.
This led us to create Sarnia Capital – a very different service to financing from a bank. Something that instead would give winemakers a personalised solution, procure the barrels or equipment for them, and that was setup to suit their cash flow. By working with our clients face-to-face, managing logistics, and being fully funded through private investment, we have the resources and freedom to give clients exactly what they’re looking for.
Over the past 10 years, we are proud to have helped over 70 wineries and many other small businesses get the equipment they needed to operate and grow. We see ourselves as champions of small business, and will be helping many wineries for the years to come.