Food economists and financial researchers have long been preoccupied by the issue of evaluating the performance of agri-food firms. As the financial restructuring of the agri-business sector during the past two decades or so reflects sweeping changes that have occurred worldwide. questions have arisen regarding the application of the most suitable financial decision-making tools. This paper introduces a new financial decision aid approach, which is based on data analysis techniques in combination with a multicriteria analysis method (PROMETHEE II). Several notions and concepts forming the financial engineering methodological framework are adopted for the design of this approach. For illustrative purposes, the case of Greek agri-businesses is used. The analysis results in an overall ranking of the examined firms' performance. Finally, given the limitations of the current study, a research agenda is proposed. (c) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.