How to Be a Treasury Leader in Turbulent Times with Ben Helsing

Foreign.

Welcome to this week's Treasury Career Corner podcast where I interview treasury professionals.

About their treasury careers.

Each and every week I talk to them about how they build their careers, where they are now, where they see both themselves and the treasury profession going to next. Let's get on with the show.

In this week's show, delight to be joined by Ben Helsing, the group treasurer and head of debt investor relations at P3 Logistic Parks headquartered in Prague. P3 Logistic Parks are a leading long term investor manager and developer of European warehouse properties 100% owned by GIC, sovereign wealth fund of the Government of Singapore. Again, as always, I'll get Ben to sort of explore a bit more about P3 later on in the show. We've recently done a lot of recruitment for Ben so that's been very successful and really enjoyed working with him and then I twisted his arm to be a guest on the show. So yeah, I hope you, you guys were going to enjoy today's show but we're going to go right back to the beginning. Ben, if you would take us back to how you first started and your degree and then coming through and discovering the world of finance and then Treasury. So back to you sir.

Thank you. Yeah, well I actually by coincidence started my career straight in treasury which I guess is quite unusual. Usually you start in some general finance and then move to Treasury. But I graduated with master's degree in finance 2002 and I had a friend from business school who had just started working in HR of the company. I then joined and she called me that they are looking for a currency and money market trader in their treasury department and at the time I barely knew what corporate treasury was or did. But this was in beginning of 2002 so just after the IT bubble had burst and the job markets were really slow so I didn't have many options. So I applied, applied for this, this job and were lucky to be chosen for the training position. So that's how I got started.

And what was treasury like back then? You know I've talked to a number of guests, we're talking 20 years ago. You know, I've shown my son things like a fax machine. One day I think he pointed out what does that mean on a keyboard I went yeah, that's when we used to send paper through. And he was like why? And I was like yeah, that's just not. So what was that like with in those early days of Treasury?

Yeah, well as you said it was still pretty paper based and bank trade confirmations were still sent by fax to the banks at least the first years. Yeah, we already had web banks in the Nordics at least, but they were not like browser based, like now, but they were like locally installed software that you contacted the bank. So the transfers were already done electronically, luckily. But of course the functionalities were pretty basic and it was a bit more cumbersome all on the software side.

But you started with Partech Corporation. What. What did they do? And then they got taken over. Let's talk through that process. But what were that. What was that organization?

Yeah, it was this huge, or, well, by Finnish standard, huge industrial conglomerate. So they did, you know, everything you can imagine, they did tractors and they did cranes and they did diesel motors. They had I think 300 different subsidiaries all over the world. But as often is the case with this kind of conglomerates, they were not priced very highly on the, on the stock exchange. So Kone Elevator and Escalator Company did this. I think it was considered a hostile takeover at the time. So they actually made a bid for partech when I had just been there for a few months, even if I was just a junior trainee at the time. I had a Reuters kind of desktop at my table. And Monday morning when I opened it, I saw on the screen that cone to acquire partech. And I went out in the corridor asking my colleagues that, what is this about? Why haven't I heard about it? And they were like, no, no, that's. You have misunderstood something. But that's how it happened. Yeah.

And can you again maybe talk then through what that was like for you? You're an early stage in your career, but you've. I've actually had that myself. I remember I joined a search firm, been a Treasury recruiter for three years, very successfully joined a search firm to set up my own practice. I was in there about, about four weeks, I think. And then they brought me into a boardroom and I thought, oh, this is good. What's going on inside this NDA? We've been bought, you know, and I'm like going, oh, hang on, we've been bought by a global mega player. You know, Hydrogen struggles at the time. And I'm like, hang on, I've just joined here to cut my teeth and learn my craft in a smaller search firm. And it said, suddenly we're back to global search. What was that like for you? Maybe joined partip, but it's only a part of. And how do you say Kone? Is that right?

Yeah, I think so, yeah. In a way, I was almost lucky probably that I was still a trainee because I had this one year fixed time contract because I was a trainee. They actually did cut down staff quite a lot to get the synergies as you do in an acquisition. So quite a few of my colleagues from the Partech treasury were laid off but because I had a fixed time contract they could not end my contract. And then when the one year had passed they realized that Kona that they, they kind of need. Need the resource. So then I got that fixed time or like a permanent contract with Kone.

Talk us through that because that was the early stage of your career but you were there for five years so you developed within that and you develop your treasury experience. But then you made a move onto Uponor.

Uponor, I mean it was part of Cancer. Were pretty big treasury departments. We were like maybe 10, 15 people and I did mostly the currency and money market dealing together with one colleague. So the scope was quite narrow. So in a way I guess I became an expert in that field. But after five years I really wanted to learn more about treasury and that's when I decided to apply to a slightly smaller. We're still international company but slightly smaller with the four person team where I knew I would get to learn all the other aspects of treasury and participate in everything that we do in Treasury. So that was the main driver why I decided to go to Uponor.

Someone on the podcast the other day we talked about the fact that by making a move from that large mega company to then a smaller group, they got that breadth of experience. Part of the show was were they not worried that by making that step down in size of terms of size of company, not in terms of interest level because actually the way they put it. So my job suddenly became twice as interesting because they were too specialist and it was great. They could have made continue to make steps within that silo, if you know that stream, but actually by then taking a wider role which is unique about Treasury. I think in some ways with finance. Did you find that yourself? Because you were then there for a period of four or five years with OpenOR and stuff. What was that like and what did they do by the way as a.

Group it's like mainly piping, plastic piping and underfloor heating solutions and things like that. So mainly active in most of Europe and North America, so quite international. Also Uponor, as I said, my role was wider. In the beginning I still had the title dealer but then after I think a year or so I was the title was upgraded to assistant Treasurer because That kind of more describes what I was actually doing, kind of helping the treasurer with more or less everything that we did in Treasury. So that's also when I got into cash management. We did a few RFPs and tenders and implementations for new cash pool solutions. So I learned that and then we implemented a net thing for the group which was something good to learn also. And then of course that was then my years when the financial crisis happened was when I was inupunor and that was a, of course professionally interesting times to watch but I was not on treasurer level yet at that stage. So it was more like a learning experience for me to work together with the treasurer and see how that affected all the funding discussions we had, et cetera. So interesting times.

Well, I talked about it. I was at a business thing last night, a business event, and someone was saying to me that what they'd been through in terms of some of the crisis, and we're just approaching our 20th anniversary as a company and they said, oh, what was it like in the 0809 subprime crisis? I said looking back, I mean at the time it was horrible but at the time it was also quite freeing because we'd just gone to America, tried to start as literally everything stopped, you know, the markets just jutted to a halt. And I said in a way, I do remember sitting looking at the board a year before, been full with all these placements and we had everything going on and. And I sat there with my ex colleague at the time and the. We just looked and said, well, what are we going to do? And I said, well, should we just go to. The phone wasn't ringing when you were calling. People like yourself, you go, mike, I'm in the depths of a crisis here, I haven't got time to talk to you about recruitment, go away. And so we just sort of, in a way it was, it was sort of not relaxing, it was the opposite, but it was just like, wow, okay, how are we going to get through this versus other crises where they've been a little bit more planned? How did then the company come out of that? What was it like? You were coping? You know, what was the crisis mode? We've been through a few pandemics and things like that since then.

But what was it like then in the financial crisis? I would say that, well, Uponor in a way was in a better position than many other companies because we were not super highly leveraged. I think those were the companies where the treasurers did not really sleep. But we tried to do some refinancing exercises. And that was very, very different than just few months earlier. The bankers were joking that they had. It was like the fish market when you tried to get the indications from the for bank financing that this indication is valid until lunch and then we will have a different price in the aftern. So it was very dynamic but also of course terrifying also for many treasurers because of course they had the attention of the board and the top management and they had to go there and explain that how are we planning to cope with all of this? And nobody really had the answer. Everybody was a bit guessing because Jason evolved every day.

And you then made the move from there. Talk us through the next couple of roles if you would with CPS and Citiconer things. So you've experienced private equity, you've been there and you've done different moves. Talk us through from there sort of thing.

Yeah. So after openor I went to CBS Scholar Group which was a private equity owned company and also was the first company where I kind of was on a group treasurer role. That was quite eye opening also from the sense that my three previous companies had all been this well managed listed companies where most things worked quite well and you had policies and you had guidelines and you knew kind of the rule book in a way. And then in this private company, private equity owned company, it was very different. It was more like that super thin organization and here's the laptop, you know, do your thing. And liquidity was super tight. Funding was, or the leverage was kind of through the roof. So you had this covenant breach this every second quarter. So I learned, learned a lot and in many ways very different from my previous work experience. Yes, I only stayed there for a couple of years because then I got the offer to join Citricon as group treasurer which was a much bigger company and for a treasurer a very interesting company like real estate companies usually are because the funding is such a key role for the whole success of the company. So you are unlike in most industrial companies where funding is like a small thing and more like an operational thing in a real estate company is really the core of the success of the company. So as a treasurer you are in every single board meeting, you are pitching something. So it was a good move and I really enjoyed my quite long tenure there. I was nine years with Citicon and implemented the new financing strategy. That was where we moved from a bank financing platform to a debt capital market facing funding platform. We got the credit ratings and we started issuing bonds.

And as part of that you'd grown your career from that internship right the way through. Now you're the treasurer, you're running a team again. When you're running that team, treasury is at the heart of things. But how did you then motivate the team? Or was it just they motivated themselves? Because hang on, you're at the heart of things, guys. And this is. What was that like for you, being the boss?

It's an interesting question. I think in treasury is, I mean the base case is that your whole team, they're all professionals and as a team leader, I think my main task is to keep them motivated. And if you have recruited the right people that are self going and have some ambition, the best way to keep them motivated is to give them some freedom to develop things for themselves, to learn new things and offer them opportunities to grow in their roles and through projects or through slightly switching the responsibilities and things like that. So I'm not a boss that is breathing in their neck all the time because I think that it's motivation but of course I have to follow what people are doing on a, on a high level and then offer support and when and is needed.

You recently now you've made the move to P3 parts which you can perhaps explain a bit more about. But tell us about the move to P3 and then I'm going to ask you a couple more questions about the people side. Actually, I'm interested in that.

A year ago I was headhunted to P3 parks, which is a real estate company, also like Citicon, but almost twice the size. We are in 12 European countries. We have a property portfolio of around 8 billion euros. And the challenge and why I got interested in this position was that they had just decided to change the financing strategy. So they used to be financed with the support of the shareholder gic, but going forward all funding will be non recourse to the shareholder on a secured basis. So it was a chance for me to kind of use what I had done in the past on a bigger scale and learn from my past experience and really build a proper size treasury function and funding platform more or less from scratch to support the further growth of the company.

And we've loved helping find you people, but I know that Katie, my colleague and I, we've talked through as, as you've been through that recruitment process. How have you, as a treasurer, how do you, as a treasurer, you yourself assess the people you bring in. You talked earlier there about you sort of empower these people and stuff like that. That's Fine. But actually if we step back from that, how do you measure that? Sometimes people say, oh, I get motivated people. I'm like, well, okay, how do you assess that when you're at interview stage? Now, one of the things that I've talked about, people say on their cvs, I love it when people say about their interests. Now some people say, oh, you should put your interest. I love it because rugby is big passion. So team sports, collaboration, working with others, that's a key thing for me. And is that the way that you go? Is that the sort of you trying to assess someone? Right, you've got the technical knowledge, what are you like as a person? How do you do that as a treasurer?

I guess it's quite hard to describe, you know, generally what I'm looking for when I'm recruiting. I'm looking for humble team players with self, healthy self confidence. So yeah, if I get the feeling from the candidate, they are just talkers with the big ego, that a huge warning sign for me. I rather have somebody more down to earth that I get the feeling that they really know what they are talking about and can deliver. So I think that's what I'm looking for. And as I said, it's also very important for me that I get the sense that the person is like self going and self motivating because I don't want to be the kind of boss that has to hold their hand all day. So I want them to kind of give them a task and give them a goal and a timeline and then they kind of run with the task and deliver. So yeah, I think that's maybe one thing at least.

And I know that the world, if you like, of treasury and we're very much into esg, green bonds and things like that. And you guys yourselves, you did your debut issuance of your euro bonds within the green market and then you know much more. Can you perhaps describe? Because I know that funding, obviously you touched on there. I think that's an interesting aspect. But before we do that, you know, the euro green bond and things like that, can you talk through how that has become part of your remit, if you like, as a treasurer? Because there are listeners today or treasurers going, oh, you know, we have a lot of American listeners, some of them are knee deep in it, some of them are just starting to touch on. They go, all right, this is something we should be doing. What's that been like for you as a treasurer?

Yeah, the whole transition to green financing has been especially strong in the real estate sector. At Citicon, we issued our green financing framework back in. Well, I don't have the number here. I think it's like three or four years ago. So we were one of the first issuers of green bonds in northern Europe in the real estate space. And it was of course a learning experience for me. Like most treasurers, I didn't know much about that. That's also a chance to grow and learn new things. And I think key in that aspect is that you have a head of ESG or a responsible ESG person in your company that can really focus on these things. So it is the real thing. The bond markets and debt capital markets is all about reputation and investors trusting you. And from this perspective, you really don't want to be caught doing just greenwashing and just painting your your bonds green. So my advice would be that don't try to start before you're actually doing something for real. Also because you, you don't want to be in a situation where you have to talk with investors and, and don't know what you are talking about. So the head of the SD or whatever this person's role is key partner to you as a treasurer and a guy that you or a girl that you should really bring on board. Also when you are meeting the banks and, and meeting the bond investors so that you can really convey your story in the right way. Because as a treasurer, I'm not the expert on every single detail about how we are installing the solar panels or how many megawatts of energy we get from geothermal energy and this and that. But these are all important things that we get more and more questions about.

And you said, you mentioned there that was you started the green financing journey at Citicon. When you then got to P3, how far were they through that green financing journey? Was it still early days for them when you came in as treasurer or was it. Oh yeah, we've already got this in place.

It was pretty early days, but already with a clearly defined ESG strategy at least. So we had made a decision on the path which is important before you are able to go forward with issuing green bonds. But as we said to the investors also that we were talking about, we have started the journey but we are still at a quite early stage. And I think that's the beauty of the green financing is that you can find a way where you're interests are aligned with the investors. We want to become more green. We want our buildings to be more sustainable and energy efficient and green investors want to finance this Transition, so help companies invest in these green measures. So in a way it's a good match and a real win win situation.

It's your virtuous circle which sort of comes back on itself and yeah, each feeds into each other. Now, you and I, Ben, we spoke before the show about why been most recently into real estate companies and how funding has really become crucial and how that's also changed within real estate that seen bond financing. We've had unsettled markets with various world events and things like that. And we're talking post pandemic now. We're talking about things happening in Ukraine. You've got all those different things. But you as a Treasury professional tell us about why you feel the funding is so interesting and how it's changed maybe as well.

Yeah. The development of financing in real estate companies in general has been quite big in recent years. So up until five, ten years ago, almost all real estate companies were financed on a secured basis by banks. And then over time, the bank's own funding costs and capital requirements have become tighter and tighter with increased regulation and their appetite to provide big amounts have decreased. But at the same time, we have seen the growth of the Eurobond market especially that has become huge and deep source of liquidity for companies in general and specifically for real estate companies that usually have big debt portfolios. We did that journey with Citicon since 2012 when we got the public credit rating from S and P and Moody's and then started issuing unsecured senior bonds in the Eurobond market and also in the Scandinavian bond market. That was what we did now with B3 that we established an EMTN program in Luxembourg. We set up a green financing framework to support and enable us to then issue green bonds. But as you said, this year the situation has changed quite a lot. So we have seen an amazingly strong Euro bond markets for the past five years, essentially until January, February this year, where the world events and that we are all aware of the increased inflation and increasing interest rates really started to to bring a lot of volatility in the bond markets. And we have seen some months when the bond markets have been more or less closed unless you have been willing to really pay up substantially and maybe especially so for real estate issuers where issuing bonds has become clearly more challenging. But I'm confident and I think the market is largely also of the opinion that it will recover. It's only taking some time and hopefully this winter, or unless some more bad surprises are coming, we hope that the bond markets will recover and we can get, get back to a healthy, stable and liquid bond market where we can get our long term funding.

With these turbulent times that have come along. This is where you as a Treasury, you really earn your money, you know, this is where you prove your worth if you like. You're not just sitting there on your hands though. Oh, we'll just wait till the markets, you know, come back and they settle down and everything else. How are you planning for that? How are you coping with that? How are you talking to the rest of the team again? This is advice for any of the listeners today. They're going well. Okay. Yes they are turbulent times but and I know that you and I have spoken about this, you're not just sitting, waiting, but how are you then planning for the recovery? What are you putting in place?

What are you thinking about regarding the bond markets? First and foremost we stay very active with the bond investors even if we are not issuing right now. So we had a lot of meetings with investors after our year end results in March, April and now again next couple of weeks we will arrange bond investor meetings to share the highlights of the half year results. So we stay active, keep P3 on the minds of bond investors. So when markets are back and we feel that they are strong enough for us to issue again with decent levels with no execution risk, then we are still relevant in the minds of the bond investors so we can quickly access the markets again. And then in the meanwhile the short term funding need we are now covering with bank financing. So when the bond markets are not there, we are discussing with a lot of commercial banks and non commercial financing institution also and erasing our short term funding need through these other sources for the time being. But I think those pockets are not as deep as the bond market. So it's, it's more a short and mid term solution. And yeah, for the long term funding need we want the bond markets to come back.

We're in a new world now with remote working and getting people in the team back together a lot of the time and everything else. But how do you, you've got this team, how many people have you got now in the team?

Well, we are five including me.

Yeah, yeah. So you've got the five of you, but how are you reassuring them, you know, how are you sitting with them? And they're going, oh crumbs, what's going to happen next? What's going to happen next? You're the treasurer, you've been there, you've seen there, you've done it, you've Got the T shirt and everything else. Are you just literally just saying that? Look guys, I've done this before. We get through this or what's your ethos?

First of all, in a way we are partly virtual team in the sense that I have half of my team sitting in Luxembourg and half of my team in Prague. Despite this, we work super closely together with this team collaboration tool. So we are all day on teams sharing screens and chatting and calling and files. So we kind of still feels like a real theme regarding these uncertain times. I talk with them, I explain them what our plans are, how I think we will cope with the situation and all that. And I think we are in the fortunate situation where our owner is as strong as an owner can be essentially. So we have a AAA government owned owner in a way. We are in a much more st many of our competitors in the real estate sectors that might have super highly leveraged funds and owners. So I think they are a bit more worried than I have to be because we have always this support from our shareholder if things would go really bad. But so far we are coping independently and I think that's how it will continue also. But if there would be some really mega disaster in the markets, I think we can still with the support of the shareholder.

Yeah, yeah, you're shielded. You've got that lack of volatility through that, that as you say, that own government ownership type element as well. And the triple A that was helps. As we wind up today's show, as we do on each and every one of the podcasts and we'll put your LinkedIn details in the show notes so that people can connect to you. It's great to have been in the network and say one of the things we recruited for you and there was like, come on, get on the show, you're going to be great on any has been as we know. What are the takeaways that you would give to other people? Maybe they're early in their career as you were a few years ago and oh yeah, what should I be doing to maybe develop myself to get up to Ben's role? Or what are the things maybe you've told your teams and or other treasurers out there? What are the pieces of advice you'd give us takeaways for people today from today's show?

And that's a good question. And of course every person is unique and what works for one person does might not work for another. But I think generally my advice is just to always focus on your current position and do your current job as good as you can kind of dig where you stand. So focus on what you can impact in your current position. And usually when you succeed then over time you are offered something else and then you just need to have the guts to encourage to take the next step when when it's offered. Other than that, I think one important thing, especially in treasury maybe is to always try to see the big picture. One of my previous bosses or CFOs always said to me that it's more important to get everything at least roughly right than to spend time and on the details and then you might end the other up having it exactly wrong. So you are looking at the decimals but you lose the big picture. So always roughly right instead of exactly wrong is I guess a one liner that to remember.

That's a great takeaway for everybody on today's show. Ben, thank you for your time. Look forward to catching up in the real world. I know we're doing it all virtually and I'm sure you do with your team as well, but lovely to chat to you today sir and look forward to catching up soon.

Thank you. Mike.

Hello, it's Mike here again. I hope you enjoyed this week's show. If you did, then maybe you want to follow the show or subscribe, depending on where you listen, whether that's itunes, Spotify or another great place to listen.

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