Jono Slade, global head of corporate finance at Rio Tinto, gave insights into the funding vicissitudes at the mining giant.
With more than 90% of Rio’s gross borrowings in bonds at the time, Slade would devote a considerable amount of time to meeting investors on roadshows across the US.
Slade’s advice for other treasurers with funding responsibilities was to think about their maturity profile:
“In a business like ours, which is very volatile, taking the cash early makes a lot of sense,” he said. “But that’s not necessarily the right thing to do for all businesses.
“You’ve got to look at your cost structure, your volatility of cash flows and ask: ‘Is the cost of holding cash an insurance premium that I am happy to pay?’”
“Working in this sector has taught me that it’s important to consider the things you don’t expect to happen – ‘black swan events’. You need to consider that if this were to happen, what would you do?”
During her time as head of treasury for Cancer Research UK, Catherine Porter was in charge of ensuring the charity’s formidable funding commitments were met.
“The onus is on me to do the right thing for the organisation and its strategies, as well as the people who donate money and want to see an outcome from science. I have a responsibility to the charity’s vision to bring forward the day when all cancers are cured,” she says.
Porter, now EMEA treasury director at CBRE, described the huge cash flows at the charity and the requirement for effective investment strategies and financial management.
“Charities want to be professional,” she said. “There is a great deal of money involved and big, serious projects going on, so it’s not that different from working in commerce in many ways.”
“Use your banks and investment managers as sounding boards. they have huge infrastructure and lots of clients that they learn from.”
At the time he was interviewed by The Treasurer, Humbert de Wendel had been in mainstream treasury roles for two years and finance for more than 30.
As head of treasury at oil and gas company Total he had an enviable position as far as fundraising was concerned, with strong credit ratings and good cash reserves.
However, given Total’s ambitious spending programme at the time, life was not without its challenges. “There’s a lot of stress on treasury because we are in a very heavy period of cash-flow consumption,” he explained.
“Oil and gas are challenging, both technically and financially. The amounts at stake are ever-growing. Some of the projects we’re engaging in can be $30–40bn in size.”
“The most difficult question my CFO could ask me is: ‘how do we recover the money that has been stuck in the demise of one of our counterparties?’”
As CFO of Weybourne Partners, the family office of fabled inventor and engineer Sir James Dyson, Martyn Smith enjoyed one of the most interesting finance roles going.
His responsibilities were wide: coordinating all the financial aspects of the Dyson family’s wealth, including its interests in Dyson Group, managing the family’s farming interests, buying and selling FX on its behalf as well as having the opportunity to look over the shoulder of one of the UK’s foremost entrepreneurs.
Smith’s association with Sir James went back to 2001 when he was director of tax and treasury at Dyson.
At the time The Treasurer spoke to him, he was also director of Elim Housing Association, a highly regulated sector with an income effectively set by the government, but one he recommended as valuable preparation for senior and non-executive roles.
From 2014 to 2015, Smith served as president of the Association of Corporate Treasurers (ACT).
“The secret to my career success is being a team player. I work cooperatively with staff and colleagues, and never say, ‘that’s not my job.’”
With internal audit as her background, Lucie Harwood took on her first treasury role at Irish food company Kerry Group, leading a team that knew more about the profession than she did. However, the tasks that she found daunting initially became second nature and she realised she had found her vocation.
After six years, she joined technology company Laird Group as group treasurer, later adding investor relations to her portfolio. As a global business operating in a diverse range of markets and geographies, including manufacturing in China, Laird provided Harwood with rich challenges and she became an advocate for treasury in the group.
She said: “We’re part of the business, not just the corporate back office, sitting there tinkering away with numbers. We are experts in our field who can be drawn on to help.”
Since speaking to The Treasurer, she has joined Aer Lingus as director of treasury, tax and insurance.
“Get involved with the business so that the business understands what you can do for them.”
Yann Umbricht has built a long career in treasury advisory work initially in his native France and then in the UK, where he moved to take advantage of the dedicated treasury advisory practice at Price Waterhouse (later PwC).
Umbricht took the AMCT exams in 2001 to deepen his understanding of the profession, joined the ACT – “an amazing organisation” – and served as its president from 2015 to 2016.
Advisory work has provided him with a wealth of rewarding assignments and professional relationships. One of his proudest moments came when a senior treasurer posed a question and listened attentively to his answer.
“That’s the day I realised I knew enough to be a credible adviser,” he said.
“Consult with your peers and your advisers. The world is complex, but you will find somebody who has faced a similar issue.”
Steve Humphreys, head of group treasury at New Look in 2016, found in his role at the fashion retailer a treasury team and a capital structure ripe for development.
Humphreys took New Look through two refinancings, including a bond issuance for which New Look was recognised in The Treasurer’s 2015 Deals of the Year Awards.
Under his leadership, the treasury function provided liquidity to further New Look’s expansion into China. He also enhanced communications on the debt investor relations side.
“If the company says it is going to do something, we do it and also report against that. The investor relations function provides our investors with a very clear reporting framework.”
Last year, Humphreys moved to McLaren Automotive, where he is group treasurer.
“Understand the strategy and what the objectives are. be there to support that and make sure you can really add value.”
Kate Moorcroft, group treasurer at housebuilder Barratt Developments, describes herself as someone who has always wanted to work. She joined Coventry Building Society at 18, moved into treasury and found the career path she was after.
At Barratt, she has redirected the company’s long-term funding needs, carrying out an amend and extend on the developer’s revolving credit facility and completing a private placement in the US market, raising £200m, twice the target.
Moorcroft places a premium on training and development, and is an enthusiastic supporter of the ACT Mentor Me programme. “If I can help support anyone who is looking to have a treasury career, that seems to me to be worthwhile.”
“Building a strong team around you is so important. If your team doesn’t share your enthusiasm, passion and future ambitions for treasury, it will be very difficult to succeed.”
Find out about the ACT’s Mentor Me programme here.
This article was taken from the 40 Years Edition 2019 issue of The Treasurer magazine. For more great insights, log in to view the full issue or sign up for eAffiliate membership