pHFD Ltd Finance Director
Direct to Profit
Peter Hollingsworth
Sector Profitability
I was contacted by the majority shareholder of a small group of three businesses. All three provided children’s services through a mixture of employed and contracted staff.
Over the 10 years I have worked with the business, I assisted in the sale of one business to its management and sadly had to assist in the closure of a second. The third business became the sole focus of the remaining team and had several very successful years until funding (largely through Local Authorities) virtually dried up. At this point we made the few remaining staff redundant but refocused the business on new areas with a wholly contracted team. Whilst development is slow the business has survived.
Funding for Growth
Long-standing personal friends who were joint owners of a PR business approached me regarding ambitious growth and new business plans. Over a number of years I improved their reporting procedures so that relevant, reliable management information was provided less than two weeks after the end of each month for Board discussion which I led.
I was also required to produce a whole series of financial forecasts to support continued bank lending support, a loan from Funding Circle and most recently a major injection from professional investors.
Family Problems
I was introduced to the senior members of a family owned care business. The parents owned 25% each and were active in the business in a largely non-executive way. The two sons also had 25% but were not involved in the business although one of the sons ran other (non competitive) care businesses.
I quickly enabled the production of reliable and up to date flows of management information which was an immediate aid to decision making during a period where the whole industry was under constant price and service pressure.
Key decisions were then made to ensure all of the operations were in ‘premium’ parts of the market so that price increases became possible.
After what turned out to be a mistaken decision of the father to retire and pass on the business to one of the sons, it became clear that the entirely different business philosophies of the two were causing huge personal rifts in the family.
Having determined that father and son could not work with one another, I worked with professional legal, tax and accounting professionals to split the business in two so that the ‘two halves’ of the family could each own their share and go their separate ways. Happily this resolved the family disputes.
After the split I continued to work with the parents in an enhanced Executive Chairman role.
Case Studies
Project Reporting
I worked with this engineering business whilst still employed at Tetra Pak. They then became my first client in 2001.
It soon became clear that their systems were inadequate and therefore their management information equally so.
I managed the selection and implementation of the Sage Line 50 accounting package and restated all their financial history using Sage.
Once this was complete I implemented an unsophisticated project accounting and reporting tool using a combination of Sage and Excel that greatly enhanced the owners understanding of the business.
When the owners decided to retire in 2014 I helped to organise a gradual progression to a solvent liquidation with the help of professional insolvency practitioners.