Peter Russell compares working in private equity versus public companies, covering treasury operations, team structure, and the challenges of switching between the two. He discusses practical leadership lessons and what financial roles actually require.
Me and the guys in the light Tunicam team, we work closely with our new colleagues to be on the boot side. And you just got to work through, you know, several weeks and months in advance planning for day one. So, you know, clearly there are effects. Although there's a merger at the top code, there are still two sets of operations. Albeit you've got to look at is there any change, are there any change of control clauses, will that impact any of my debt facilities, will the credit risks change? So although there's no change of control, will lenders be less willing to offer an overdraft, etc. So we work through different practicalities, how do we work our pools, etc. And you have to have a plan and you work through ground up from the cash, the funding, the change of control, what facilities do I have? And then you get on the phone to your banking group and for a lot of them, they want to stay with you because they see it as an opportunity. There might be one or two that want to leave because of pricing, for example, you suddenly were able to drive even better pricing on our banking facilities. And so again, you just work, you have to work through all of that as a team with your, you know, both sides. I'd always advise wherever possible, if it's big enough, get a project manager. I was lucky enough to have a guy who joined the cfo, brought in a gentleman to work with us on the wider finance function, not just treasury, but it sort of forced us into planning and going through all the issues in detail.
More recently you've been gone private equity to public and then the process in going back to being private equity, what implements that process and how's that then impacted on treasury as it were. Because we were saying before the show has been quite a challenging time.
Yeah. So it has, I mean one bit maybe to add is in terms again thinking about my travelex experience of travel port. Again the key is again this goes back to sort of leadership. You've got to work out, have you got the right structure, the right people in your team, the right location, the right technology. And so one of the things that I started before the IPO thinking about, but then implemented post IPO was again consolidating the team. So the team, when I joined we had a board team in Atlanta as well as team here in the UK and Langley. I realized sort of after a while the road, a great team, really good people in Atlanta didn't really make sense in terms of a look forward treasury structure. So with the use of technology and Also matching the business model here, which is quite a centralized approach in terms of the way we contract globally. As a very focused corporate team here in Langley, it made sense to focus with the treasury team here, so the team was consolidated into a core team here in the uk. Get qualified, prove that you got that sort of technical ability and you will. You know, the treasury exams have changed since I've done them, but I think they're even more relevant. I found them exceedingly relevant when I did them. Having done the aca, the Chartered Accountancy. I'm proud of the fact I got through them when I did them, but I found the treasury examination know very relevant for the job. So to do those go on courses, really understand the technical aspects of treasury and your role in that. You know, one of the things I think, because I found it so interesting, I quite enjoyed doing the treasury exam, although I was glad I got through them. Just I got through the MCT just as my first daughter was born and I bowed. I'd never do any more exams. I haven't done any more exams since then. But get a good foundation in terms of your qualifications, Sam.
