My Life in Treasury: François Masquelier, RTL Group

An Interview with François Masquelier, Head of Corporate Finance and Treasury, RTL Group

Treasury professionals have taken a wide variety of routes when building a career path, and the decision to pursue a treasury career is often a result of chance and circumstance rather than early ambition. François Masquelier, Head of Corporate Finance and Treasury at RTL Group, is well known to TMI readers, and has had notable successes both in his corporate role and in the wider profession as Chairman of ATEL (Association des Trésoriers d’Entreprise de Luxembourg), and Vice-Chairman of EACT (European Association of Corporate Treasurers). Like many others, his treasury career was launched almost accidentally, as he describes in this interview with Helen Sanders, Editor, but he has gone on to become one of the most influential treasurers in the profession.

How did you move into ‘treasury’ and what attracted you to that profession?

I came into treasury somewhat by chance. My career began on the dealing floor of a bank where I worked as a trader, although I started out as a tax lawyer. My second job, after two years, was as a Junior Treasurer in the Treasury Coordination Centre of Eridania Beghin-Say, an agro-industrial company based in Brussels. This happened by chance – and also by luck, I should now say, since a head-hunter convinced them that I would be suitable for the job. I give thanks to them every single day (the head-hunter and my boss at the time, to whom I send my good wishes if he reads this).

What attracted me was the more practical and pragmatic aspect of a multinational corporation (when compared to a bank), and also the fact that I wanted to give up trading to move to hedging of real underlying exposures. I was looking for a more generalist job, a job that was more varied and less hyper-specialised than the typically mono-product bank dealing. To be honest, I also wanted to reduce the stress that trading generated. I have never regretted it.

How did your career progress through to the role that you hold today?

As I often say, I am ‘a tax lawyer who went astray’. I never practised corporate law because at the end of my studies finance attracted me to the point of doing a Masters. For a long time I wavered between banking and the ‘real economy’ (meaning non-financial corporations). I worked for Sakura Bank, a big Japanese bank, before discovering MNC (multinational company) treasury work. After a few years, I decided to have another go at working in a bank in a more commercial post in the large company corporate finance section of ABN.AMRO. Then having landed in Luxembourg as the result of a transfer within the bank, I decided to go back to the ‘real economy’ and corporate treasury at CLT-UFA, which then became RTL Group, the leading European media group. And I have to admit that this was and still is a love story between me, Luxembourg and this fabulous media group. There I also discovered ATEL (Association des Trésoriers d’Entreprise de Luxembourg), the Luxembourg Corporate Treasurers Association, of which I am the chairman and to which I am very attached, as many people know.

How have demands and needs in terms of treasury changed over the course of your career, and what particular skills does it now require?

That is an excellent question; because it is my view that treasury has changed fundamentally. It has perhaps even transformed itself over the last few years to become a key function within finance. I was at work in the days before the EUR and I have hedged the DEM against the ITL and the FRF against the NLG. That was another era! Globalisation of the economy and technological developments have expanded the scope of our work, automated our processes and enhanced our productivity. Corporate treasury is still a young profession, and the changes it is undergoing are still far from over. Today, IT tools are interfaced (straight-through processed), made secure, with encrypted messages and automated reports.

Then we saw the IAS/IFRS accounting revolution. The famous IAS 39 changed my life, I have to admit – I even devoted three books and many articles to it, so you know that it is dear to my heart. ‘Fair value’ diametrically changed the job and the strategic approach. Greater overall rigour emerged in the treasury function. To a certain extent the accounting function has become the cart put before the treasury horses. Then the financial crisis fell upon us in 2008, further changing the job. Its importance came to the fore with the liquidity crisis, and it has kept on changing, particularly to adapt to the new European legislative and regulatory framework. Would anyone have talked about ‘regulation’ and ‘ESMA’ just eight years ago?

The treasurer’s role has become closer to the CFO but also more complex. Of the financial functions, it is the one that has changed by far and away the most over the last 20 years. It was initially an operational role, but shifted more towards management accounting, and now is even moving towards a strategic role in addition to its other two roles. Treasurers are true potential creators of value in corporations. Thanks to IAS 39 and the crisis, they have also had to move closer to their operational subsidiaries and involve themselves in day-to-day operations to understand them better. Today they face a multitude of challenges: more ‘dashboarding’, more business intelligence, more straight-through processing and more centralisation. There are many challenges on the horizon: staying compliant with new regulations, moving towards greater centralisation, setting up ‘payment factories’ (including POBO/ROBO), introducing eBAM and Bank Service Billing (BSB), putting new TiRMS modules in place, etc. – there are too many of them for me to list them all here.

This aspect of never-ending change is a feature of the job. I liken treasurers to a sort of chameleon or victims of the theory of Darwinism: “the function creates the organ” (i.e, new needs drive the evolution of the qualities required by treasury roles). This is precisely what makes the profession so exciting and thrilling.[[[PAGE]]]

What is your greatest professional achievement to date and why?

That is a tricky question, and my character prevents me from flagging up any particular one. I have been very pleased with the work my team achieved. Everything that contributes to improving our work, our performance and the security of the processes in place gives me a feeling of satisfaction. But if there is one thing that I look back on with real appreciation, it is having the good fortune to be put in charge of the ERM (Enterprise Risk Management) system for the RTL group. This proved that ERM and treasury are by no means incompatible – quite the opposite: they are very much a complementary fit, as is demonstrated by some surveys (see: How treasury can lead ERM – www.AFPonline.org).

I also derive much satisfaction from what I have succeeded in creating in Luxembourg with ATEL, of which I have been chairman for 15 years. The recognition of the association and of our work, our many publications and conferences, are a great source of satisfaction for me and a key driver of my professional life. I would not want to overlook EACT, which in a modest way I helped to set up, since few people believed that we would persuade so many countries and associations to rally round one single objective. Lobbying the European Union and the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), in which I take an active part, has had results of which I am proud. I can say that, in general, I am happy with my humble contribution to the profession and to its development. I try to be a visionary at my level and to help the profession develop, because by nature treasurers usually tend to be conservative and more reactive than proactive. I like to move things forward, and I work hard at it.

What qualities do you look for when you are recruiting for your department?

Over and above the basic technical qualities needed for treasury work, I look for the following qualities: adaptability, team spirit, creativity, flexibility and a spirit of enquiry into everything relating to the treasury function. I like people who love their job and are passionate about it. A team’s strength comes from all the cogs working together, and atmosphere is crucial when you are working long hours every day. Motivation then becomes self-generating.

In your view, how much importance should be given to formal treasury training as against more general financial training?

The problem arises from the fact that treasury usually receives little or no coverage in university courses. Even specialist training courses are still too generalist. It is by doing the job that you learn the job, and practice makes perfect! I believe in practical training on the job, on top of a solid grounding in finance. That is why our treasurer associations, magazines, societies and training courses are so important in giving this dimension to young people and in passing on this specific knowledge that has become ever more wide-ranging and complex. The subjects covered by courses today are vast. Our job as an association is to contribute to spreading this expertise and knowledge. All initiatives that help this are good, and I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the TMI Academy, which is contributing to this goal: training the treasurers of tomorrow. It is up to young treasurers to keep on learning and never to stop learning, retaining this spirit of enquiry and this interest in the treasury function. Reading articles and treasury handbooks, going to conferences, participating in webinars and discussing things with your peers are all ways of keeping up to date and up to speed with financial techniques at all times.

Based on your own experience, what advice would you give to young finance professionals starting out in treasury?

Have an enquiring mind and a desire to learn. Read articles by your peers and suppliers to understand how the profession has evolved. Be eager to embrace change and be hungry for knowledge. I would also advise them to stay flexible so as to adapt to a world that is changing at an ever faster rate. Be creative, don’t neglect ‘soft skills’ and stay employable by continuing to discover new things. Be one of the pioneers by setting up new structures or introducing new solutions. Change also motivates the staff. Create the world of treasury in which you want to operate, be one of the shapers of this development. If you do that, as often happens in the treasury function, you will come to love the job and you will never want to leave it again. If you go into treasury, you seldom leave it. This is because the exciting and vibrant nature of the work draws you in to the job – often for ever. “A treasurer for one day, a treasurer for always!”

What book have you read recently or what film have you seen recently that you would recommend, and why?

I have always liked the cinema and TV (RTL forces me to watch!). However, I seldom go to the cinema. As an audience, I am easily pleased and I like the cinema in general. I have devoured the Première film magazine every month since I was 16. Today, the American series are outstanding and rival the cinema. I love action films and thrillers. My latest book was in French by a Swiss author, Joël Dicker: Les derniers jours de nos pères [The Final Days of Our Fathers], a beautiful and cruel story set in the Second World War. I already have the two sequels, which I’m going to take with me when I next go on holiday.

What would you see as being your ideal holidays?

The sort of holidays my family dream about, discovering different countries and continents, sunshine because for me it is synonymous with holidays (even though I love skiing in winter – on sunny ski runs) and finally sport, because that is one of my dearest passions. I love discovering the countryside and roads by bike. Give me time and a good bike, and no treasurer will have a happier holiday than I!