ستيفن Prowse

A FTSE 250 company and the world’s largest listed online gaming group in the world. Annual transactions of GBP 9bn, revenue of GBP 800m and staff of 3, 500. In 2011 PartyGaming plc merged with bwin, a similarly-sized Austrian gaming group in a paper deal valuing the combination at close to GBP 2bn.

Location lived in: Gibraltar

Duties:
- Financial planning and day-to-day operational aspects of BAU and projects
- Reporting to the Executive and heads of departments (matrix)
- Oversight and delivery of MI, annual budgets and long range financial plans
- Managing up to 100 financial staff (6 direct)
- Head of procurement across the Group
- Member of the Audit and Treasury committees
- Development of the Annual Report and investor presentations
- Key liaison with external auditors
- ROCE analysis of both current and proposed projects
- Due diligence and post-merger integration of new businesses
- Have the business see the finance function as a valued partner, not an overhead
- Development, measuring, and improving reporting of KPIs

Achievements:

- The global Capex at PartyGaming, mainly hardware, was around GBP 150m / year and under the remit of the CIO. I managed to wrestle this from him and put my own team in place that properly reviewed contracts every three years (all suppliers, not just Capex), leading to savings of around GBP 20 / year.
- Negotiation, due diligence, shareholder prospectus and post-merger integration of Foxy Bingo (50 staff) and bwin (1, 600 staff). Total consideration of over GBP 1bn and was the same process as a London IPO. Over 50 finance staff let go
- Moved the Group’s accounting back-office to India (50 staff)
- Moved internal and external reporting from USD to EUR and to IFRS from local GAAP
- Reduced reconciliations of client monies from three months to two weeks (EUR 10bn per annum)
- Rewrote and mapped the chart of accounts post-merger to reflect new business needs
- Set industry standards for reporting
- Accountancy Age Awards 2009 - Annual Report of the Year: Business
- CorpComms Awards 2008 and 2009 - Best Annual Report: Private Sector
- Introduced a three-year rebidding cycle, with estimated cost savings of GBP 10m / year
- Self-built a reporting tool from Oracle itself which also consolidated the numbers, used both internally and by the auditors. Monthly closing decreased from 10 days to 3 and audit fees halved to GBP 300k. The auditors, BDO, claimed it was better than Hyperion
- Wrote a reporting tool that directly linked Oracle to the annual report
- Wrote and populated a share option scheme reporting system and an Oracle HR reporting system
- Wrote a makeshift MIS for bwin post-merger that linked directly to their accounting system (SAP)

A hedge fund with assets under management of GBP 100m.

Duties:
- Ensure FCA (was FSA) compliance
- Managing 1 financial staff
- Expenditure tracking, operating budgets and long range financial plans
- Member of the Investment committee
- ROCE analysis of both current and proposed investments
- Investor roadshows
- VAT and payroll
- Development of the Annual Report and investor presentations
- Key liaison with external auditors

Achievements:
- Built a live dashboard showing the investment position of the funds, including hedges, at any time with warnings if self-imposed limits were being reached.
- Built a new MIS system, linking the Word document directly to the accounting system (Sage)
- Performed stress analysis on investment suggestions and business plans
- Presentations to both management, investors, and capital-raising roadshows

A PE-backed private bank for HNW individuals with asset management, trust, financial services and hedge fund administration divisions. Citco is the largest hedge fund administrators in the world with over GBP 500bn assets under administration.

Locations lived in: Curacao, Netherlands, USA

Achievements:
- Moved to Florida (from Amsterdam) where the IT hub was and rebuilt all reporting after obtaining feedback from clients
- Closed down a loss-making US brokerage operation (15 staff)
- Improved controls and speed of reporting
- Consolidation of 10 group servers around the world onto a central server
- Reformulating 10 separate and disparate finance teams around the world into one cohesive unit
- Simplification of the inter-company structure
- Upgrading MIS from a quarterly reporting system with a production time of one month, to monthly reporting with a production time of one week with an improved audit / accountability trail. Directly linked to the accounting system (Coda)
- Introduction of both global and divisional KPIs
- Reengineering the chart of accounts to capture and post code relevant information
- Writing a reporting tool from the Time & Billing software that allowing management to monitor staff activity. Productivity increased 10%.
- Introduction of a cash management system

A PE-backed private bank for HNW individuals with asset management, trust, financial services and hedge fund administration divisions. A very similar group to Citco.

Achievements:
- Moved from London to Amsterdam to sit with the newly acquired business to successfully aid integration
- Improved reporting, both speed and accuracy
- Negotiation, due diligence, and post-merger integration of an offshore trust business (200 staff). Consideration was GBP 100m
- Sourced and implemented new accounting system, including the training
- Involved in an IPO, the company listing in Luxembourg and later in the UK
- Once again, wrote MIS from scratch personally, with direct links to the accounting system which more than doubled the speed of reporting

The standard rise to Audit Senior. A vast array of clients from FMCG to manufacturing, real estate, importing.