Getting "mortgaged up to the eyeballs" helped propel a Mt Maunganui farmer and his wife into the 2012 NBR Rich List with an estimated fortune of $200 million.
Dairy farmers Colin and Dale Armer are new entrants and ranked 49th on the list, which recognises the 200 wealthiest people in New Zealand.
For Mr and Mrs Armer, what started as milking a few cows has turned into a multimillion-dollar business.
Mr Armer said they made their money by working hard and investing in their business Dairy Holdings, which is New Zealand's largest dairy farming conglomerate and worth $535 million.
Getting there had been "a real team effort", Mr Armer said.
"It's been hard work between both of us. [Dale] has been a driving force and done more than her fair share of hours. She's been running the financial side of the business for years," he said.
Mrs Armer said their success was a result of playing on their strengths and working well together.
Mr Armer was raised on a Te Puke dairy farm and bought his first herd of 130 cows when he was aged 19. He did that by "mortgaging up to my eyeballs, like many Kiwis".
He got involved in share-milking, invested in a company he believed in and, as they say, the rest is history.
Today, Mr Armer is a director of Fonterra and one of four directors of Dairy Holdings, of which he and Mrs Armer are majority shareholders.
In February, the couple were instrumental in ending the sale process of Dairy Holdings, which was in the process of going under as a result of one of the shareholders, South Canterbury Finance, going into receivership.
Mr and Mrs Armer and a few other investors bought South Canterbury Finance's $54.5 million stake. That gave them full control of 58 South Island farms, covering 18,000 hectares and 43,400 milking cows.
Last month, dairy farm company Armer Farms (NI) Ltd was fined $72,200 for the unlawful discharge of dairy effluent near Maketu. The couple were directors of the company but not charged because they did not have day-to-day responsibility over the farm.
Mr Armer said he was embarrassed to be on the rich list and said he and his wife "liked to keep a low profile and do our business".
He said the $200 million that NBR estimated they were worth was not correct but he would not elaborate.
He said they were like any other Bay of Plenty couple and enjoyed hunting and fishing. They have a combined family of eight children and seven grandchildren.
The wealthiest New Zealander on the list was Graeme Hart, with an estimated fortune of $6 billion. He placed second behind Alexander Abramov, who lives in Russia but has invested in New Zealand.
- Genevieve Helliwell, Bay of Plenty Times
