CFO说

Dixons Carphone FD， Humphrey Singer

“ As FD， you are more of a player in the strategic conversation. We had a clear gap in our portfolio selling mobile phones and needed to do something about that， because technology was converging and consumers were thinking in a more seamless way，” he says. As is clear from Singers responsibilities， communication of the combined entitys direction of travel was absolutely core to its success， almost as important as calculating whether the deal was beneficial. “In many respects， you end up being a sort of salesman to a lot of stakeholders： selling the story and explaining what youre doing， while a lot of the actual work is being done by the teams back in the company. I spend a huge proportion of my hours explaining externally the story of Dixons Carphone，” explains Singer.

英国电器零售集团Dixons Carphone由Dixons零售和Carphone仓库集团合并而成。财务总监Humphrey Singer在这桩超级并购交易中的作用显著而清晰， 他的角色代表了CFO在过去20年的进化路径。“作为财务总监，更多的工作应该是参与战略对话。过去我们的移动电话组合销售之间衔接明显不畅，随着技术的不断融合，消费者以更加无缝的方式思考，因此我们需要对此做点什么。”Singer认为，对于合并后的公司而言，发展中的沟通是成功的绝对核心，几乎与衡量这笔交易的价值同样重要。“在很多方面，CFO在利益相关者面前的角色类似推销员：卖故事、解释你在做什么等，而很多实际的工作是由背后的团队来完成的。”

Betfair CFO，Alex Gersh

Overall， the finance side of the company he runs is now “much leaner and more focused”， adds Gersh. And a key element of that drive， especially for a FTSE 250 company， is compliance and investor confidence. “The confidence of investors and the public in how we operate is very important，” says Gersh. “We hold close to ?300m of UK customers money so the quality of our security and the information we provide must be very robust. We need to be very transparent， so we tweaked our accounting policy so it was very clear if were spending money on operations or capital expenditures. I also introduced， at certain times of the year， profit guidance to investors and we give them a range.”

加入英国互联网博彩公司Betfair不久，CFO Alex Gersh就着手使Betfair实现了盈利迅猛增长。他认为，总体而言，公司的财务变得更精益、更集中。另外，对于一家富时250指数公司而言，增长背后的一大关键因素是合规性和投资者信心。“我们管理着英国客户的近3亿英镑资金，对透明度的要求非常高。对此，我们对会计政策进行了调整，能够很清楚地了解钱是花在运营上还是用在资本支出上，尤其是在进行大的资本投资时。此外，在每年的特定时间，我还会为投资者指导利润预期，向他们提供一个利润范围。”

BrewDog FD，Neil Simpson

In terms of set up costs， the international bars are on a partner arrangement so cost calculations are not an issue but here in the UK the business looks at payback in terms of beer sales and units profitability itself. "We have a standard template， but within that template we have outliers so we might have smaller or bigger， higher profile sights that fall out with the norm. But that norm means we set a benchmark where we look for payback of our in costs with 24 to 36 months. That's not hard and fast but it's a good guide to which we work，" Simpson says.

作为苏格兰酿酒厂Brewdog的财务总监，Neil Simpson为这家标新立异的啤酒生产商带来了财务智慧。就设置成本而言，国际化酒吧的建设由合作伙伴来安排，所以不存在成本计算问题；但在英国市场，必须根据啤酒销售和单位盈利能力来看投资回报。“我们有一个标准模板，模板内又设定了异常值，能够对偏离常态的结果进行监测。不过，这种常态是我们设定的一个基准，用24到36个月的时间获得投资回报。虽然达到这个目标并不难，实现也不需要太长时间，但对于我们的工作而言是一个很好的指导。”