Published: December 01, 2008
La Lettre du Trésorier
I believe you have had a varied career path.
Céline FederspielIn fact, my educational background was in law, specialising in business law. But I was always more interested in figures, which is why I decided to embark on postgraduate studies in banking and finance. After a few months’ initial experience with a bank, I joined KPMG Audit, where I worked for seven years. In addition to carrying out traditional accounting audits at British groups, I performed many internal audit assignments during my time there.
As is traditional, I then went to the corporate sector and joined Brasseries Kronenburg at the end of 1997. At this time, Kronenburg, a subsidiary of Danone, was going through a period of consolidation, as was its competitor Heineken, buying up distribution subsidiaries which subsequently became Elidis. The group had just acquired 90 legal entities and we needed to standardise the accounting practices, carry out financial audits and, and more importantly, financial restructuring, with a programme of 60 mergers over a three-year period.
CF: I’m getting there. Kronenburg was acquired in 2001 by Scottish & Newcastle so I continued with the restructuring transactions, with 30 companies on completion. It was not until mid-2001 that I took up a treasury role, which covered both the industrial activities and the distribution activities. I had two major objectives: the first was to introduce an expert, reliable and effective system for monitoring WCR indicators and the second was to introduce a ZBA cash pool for all parts of the group in order to rationalise the cash flows. I subsequently took up the position at Manpower as treasurer in July 2005.
CF: Manpower Inc. is a more global group which, in addition to the Manpower brand, also principally includes Right Management, which carries out career transition programmes and human resources consultancy, Jefferson Wells, an internal audit and finance consultancy and Elan, which specialises in recruitment, IT engineering and telecoms. Manpower France accounted for 34% of the Group’s revenues of €5.1 billion in 2007. Our company generates the highest amount of cash, and it is for this reason that we are the pivotal point of the group treasury centralisation function.
Manpower France accounted for 34% of the Group's revenues of €5.1 billion in 2007.
CF: Manpower France has been the central point for the multi-currency, cross-border notional cash pool since 2003. The pooling process currently includes 14 currencies and more than 35 companies located throughout the world. In the notional mode, there is no physical escalation of cash flows each day as we pool the cash within the group. Each unit contributes according to its surpluses or borrows according to its requirements on a daily basis. The related logistics are very straightforward for each participant, which only needs to manage one or more bank accounts and the associated interest. [[[PAGE]]]
Being the pivotal point of the centralisation process means that Manpower France balances the sum of the lending and borrowing positions on a daily basis. We always work in tandem with our parent company, Manpower Inc., which controls the debt and cash of the subsidiaries and Manpower France, executes the requirements or invests the surpluses. Procedures and forecasts are in place, and the transactions are carried out through a secure site.
In Paris, the Treasury team consists of three people to manage the French day-to-day cash flows and we are in touch with around 20 financial teams which the group has throughout the world.
CF: In addition to the quite strict group standards (no capital losses, yields known in advance), we need to remain liquid all the time in order to be able to finance the group as required. In practice, our preference is for normal monetary euro UCITS. These are still quite profitable, and on average in 2007 we were more than 50 basis points above the EONIA.
CF: Our pooling bank is ING Mendes Ganz. Our activities in France are characterised by high volumes. All in all, we carried out around six million bank transfers in 2007. 95% of our work is conducted through three cash management banks – LCL, Société Générale and BNP Paribas, the rest being with Banque Postale. The rationalisation of our banking relations was finalised through an invitation to tender for cash flow, short-term finance and financial guarantees services in July 2006. This has enabled us to reduce our cash flow and guarantee costs by 40%. The basis of the distribution of cash flows is the same as the distribution of our financial guarantee. In the temporary employment companies, financial guarantees are compulsory and are equivalent to 8% of revenues. At Manpower this amounted to more than €350 million last year.
The pooling process currently includes 14 currencies and more than 35 companies located throughout the world.
We have the same distribution for short-term finance, which is consistent with the contracts signed by the group, which allow global debt figures at certain periods of the year. Our profession is quite cyclical, and the scale of our cash position is still significant.
CF: Yes, Manpower is currently positioned as a true partner in corporate human resources, creates employment solutions which meet recruitment needs encompassing temporary employment, recruitment on fixed-term and unspecified-term contracts, training engineering, management consultancy and career transition, placement of jobseekers etc.
At present, we have 4,900 permanent employees in France over a network of more than 1,130 agencies.
Lastly, as regards preparations for SEPA, we are still at the thinking stage at present. The migration from the RIB banking code to the BIC/IBAN system will be a very big operation for us because we pay our temporary staff by bank transfer. The switch to the XML format, perhaps with a SWIFT office service, should rationalise our banking communications costs, but for the time being, we are still working in the CFONB format under Etebac 3 and the Pesit system.
Interview by Sophie Rack
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