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Speaker 3: At what point do you really like, hit your stride
Speaker 3: and become like a superstar in the space. Do you think?
Speaker 1: Yeah? What what became important to me was to try
Speaker 1: to try to prove that that the good things that
Speaker 1: were happening weren't environmental. That became that became important to me.
Speaker 1: So I kind of said, okay, Primireil was a good company,
Speaker 1: had momentum us based and I kind of found my
Speaker 1: way there. So now at KDS, this company's not going well.
Speaker 1: Premiere was going well when I arrived. This company's not
Speaker 1: going well. Can I turn that company around? Okay? So
Speaker 1: that was that situation. I want to find another situation
Speaker 1: that doesn't look like any either of these two, and
Speaker 1: I want to deliver in that situation because it's a
Speaker 1: you know now, I've got free You know now, then
Speaker 1: I've got free successes different types of technology, different geographic markets,
Speaker 1: different types of end customers. And if I can do free,
Speaker 1: then that probably answers a question that it's not environmental.
Speaker 1: It's not that I find, you know, I just I'm
Speaker 1: lucky in showing up in good places. So that that
Speaker 1: became that became important to me, And I would say
Speaker 1: after the third one, which was core Hr, which we
Speaker 1: sold to ACCESS for two hundred and fifty million euros,
Speaker 1: after that one, I started to feel like I might
Speaker 1: I might know what I'm doing it. It was like
Speaker 1: at that point I thought, mate, yeah, well.
Speaker 3: How did you turn Let's talk about the second company
Speaker 3: right that you want to You became a CEO, you
Speaker 3: turned it around, and you ended up selling it.
Speaker 1: We sold it to an American Express for one twenty five.
Speaker 3: So how did you turn it around? And what was
Speaker 3: the process of actually selling the company to American Express.
Speaker 1: That company was a Paris headquartered SaaS business that had
Speaker 1: ninety five percent of its customers in France, So the
Speaker 1: play there was geographic expansion. So we grew that company
Speaker 1: in the UK, Germany and the US. So what I
Speaker 1: learned at Motorola and Sales, Premieri and Sales and Oracle
Speaker 1: in sales was pretty much the sharp end of how
Speaker 1: we grew KDS. It was a sales play. I go
Speaker 1: to my could play, So it's really kind of optimizing
Speaker 1: sales and marketing in new new geographies, a little bit
Speaker 1: of what I'd done at prim of Err And we
Speaker 1: created a partnership with American Express where they were relying
Speaker 1: on our technology for a white label arrangement to service
Speaker 1: their customers and as a result of that, they were
Speaker 1: kind of automating, you know, a big part of their business.
Speaker 1: Meant they didn't need people to do a bunch of
Speaker 1: stuff they were using the technology to do. So when
Speaker 1: we knew we wanted to sell the company, we went
Speaker 1: to American Express and said, we have a partnership, this
Speaker 1: is delivering a lot of value for you. You probably
Speaker 1: should think about buying the company, And they kind of said,
Speaker 1: you know, partnership works, why would we buy the company.
Speaker 1: If you know, we can just pay you to white
Speaker 1: label it. So then I went to MasterCard and said,
Speaker 1: we're delivering a service to American Express, you probably ought
Speaker 1: to have the same service. We know you have some relationships,
Speaker 1: but they're not delivering for you in the same way
Speaker 1: as we are for American Express. So we signed a
Speaker 1: deal with MasterCard. It was a commercial dealer at the time.
Speaker 1: So then I started to negotiate an equity position for
Speaker 1: them to invest in KDS. The talk track was, you know,
Speaker 1: if we'd suddenly changed strategy, you're going to be left vulnerable,
Speaker 1: so you should have you know, you should invest, you
Speaker 1: should have a seat, you should have a say, And
Speaker 1: it was supposed to be a twenty five percent. In
Speaker 1: the end it was like a five percent negotiation. But
Speaker 1: the threat of American Express is number one competitor taking
Speaker 1: an equity position in a partner that they relied on
Speaker 1: heavily in Europe brought them, brought them back to the
Speaker 1: table set. It's like creating a bit of competitive tension.
Speaker 1: Even though American Express didn't understand that the investment was
Speaker 1: actually going to be you know, it wasn't really material,
Speaker 1: just the threat of it brought them back to the
Speaker 1: table and then what followed was one of the most
Speaker 1: entertaining negotiations of of my life with the then chairman
Speaker 1: of one half of the American Express, which was their
Speaker 1: travel management business. Negotiated the deal with that guy and
Speaker 1: it was just insane. It included him having me removed
Speaker 1: from his offices twice by security.
Speaker 3: What was such a big It was like Dame Deask situations.
Speaker 2: I'm thinking, like Champagne Bowser is coming in there, how
Speaker 2: did you get in this office?
Speaker 1: And so it had to be removed? What it was
Speaker 1: so funny? I was I was pretty I was pretty
Speaker 1: young too, so I'm trying to remember what what basically
Speaker 1: happened was. After the MasterCard thing, they called and said,
Speaker 1: actually we thought about it. You know, we need to
Speaker 1: have a conversation about acquiring you. Okay, So we all
Speaker 1: showed up, did the presentation. The company at the time
Speaker 1: was turning over pay five million dollars. It wasn't for
Speaker 1: a million years, so it wasn't huge. So we do
Speaker 1: this big presentation. He says, love the company, love what
Speaker 1: you do. I'm going to make you an offer. But
Speaker 1: when I make you this offer, the only thing you
Speaker 1: cannot do is negotiate the offer with me. It's a
Speaker 1: room full of people. We are not going to negotiate
Speaker 1: the but you can ask any question you want to ask.
Speaker 1: And we'd had a great meeting up until this point.
Speaker 1: So he, you know, he writes standard number on the paper,
Speaker 1: slides it across the table. I opened the paper and
Speaker 1: it says six million euros. Now the company's turning over
Speaker 1: forty five million euros. As the offer just doesn't make
Speaker 1: any sense. It's less than we're paying the developers to
Speaker 1: develop the software that we're talking about the company acquiring.
Speaker 1: So I was so stunned when over, I was like, great,
Speaker 1: this doesn't make any sense, Like where did you get
Speaker 1: six million from? So see, I told you the only
Speaker 1: go shake the right that's it. And he picked up
Speaker 1: the phone and like just called somebody and security turned up.
Speaker 1: They said, mister Forldham, sorry, you got to go. And
Speaker 1: I was looking at him like in disbelief, is this really?
Speaker 1: And that was the first time. Then the second time
Speaker 1: it happened, it was a long way further down the cycle.
Speaker 1: He calls me, he says, listen, I'm going to be
Speaker 1: in London. I understand. We didn't see. I to I
Speaker 1: last time. Come up to the office. I'm going to
Speaker 1: set this straight. So I said to my wife at
Speaker 1: the time, Oh, if he's calling me back, it's a
Speaker 1: done deal. Like we don't, it's going to get done.
Speaker 1: So I got to his office. It's just me and him.
Speaker 1: The office is huge in London, and I arrive and
Speaker 1: he's super friendly. How's your weekend? How's your family? You
Speaker 1: like jay Z and Beyonce. I'm like yeah, I'm a
Speaker 1: huge fan. He says, Oh, they've got the apartment above
Speaker 1: mine in Manhattan or wherever, or Jersey. I'm going to
Speaker 1: bring you over. You should meet them on my boat
Speaker 1: next week. Like he's really laying it on. He says, anyway,
Speaker 1: I realized I offended you last time. I've made you
Speaker 1: a new offer. So he gives me an offer. It's
Speaker 1: twelve million euros this time, and we've already told him
Speaker 1: that the clearing number is one hundred million euros, like
Speaker 1: you already he knows this. And I said to him, go, Greg,
Speaker 1: this is ridiculous, like how could you even imagine this
Speaker 1: might be possible? And it just starts screaming. He just
Speaker 1: starts screaming. You know, you're an idiot. You don't know
Speaker 1: what good offer looks like. I can't believe told people
Speaker 1: told me that you're smart, that you know what you're doing.
Speaker 1: I can't believe you've been running this company. Who's let
Speaker 1: you run this company? An he calls security again, that's
Speaker 1: as we removed. And then months after that we get
Speaker 1: the deal done at one hundred and twenty five, but
Speaker 1: it was was he still there?
Speaker 3: He did the deal, So how did it go from
Speaker 3: six to twelve to one hundred and twenty five. That's
Speaker 3: not even close to each other.
Speaker 1: Or two things happened. We started a conversation with booking
Speaker 1: dot Com and they became aware of that. So again
Speaker 1: the competitive tension steeping the actually free things happened. Booking
Speaker 1: dot Com happened. Their partner contract with US was coming
Speaker 1: up for renewal, so I terminated the partner contract. So
Speaker 1: I said completely, we're walking away. Wouldn't say it's a bluff,
Speaker 1: but said, you know, we're not doing us. We're not. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we need to renegotiate the terms of disagreement because we
Speaker 1: don't like them, and we're having other conversations which may
Speaker 1: affect whether or not we can partner with you. Right.
Speaker 1: That was the next thing that happened. And then the
Speaker 1: third thing that happened is I called him and said,
Speaker 1: I got a board meeting on Friday, and during that
Speaker 1: board meeting, I'm going to be looking at free offers
Speaker 1: and if I accept one of those offers, I won't
Speaker 1: be able to negotiate with you to potentially acquire the company.
Speaker 1: So if you want to make me an offer, you
Speaker 1: have to do it by Friday at five o'clock. Okay, by,
Speaker 1: and I put the phone down. There was no time,
Speaker 1: and I had no board meeting on Friday either, by
Speaker 1: the word right. So when I said that to him,
Speaker 1: and then I was at home on Friday, I remember
Speaker 1: playing I was playing Fifa with my son on Friday.
Speaker 1: I completely forgot about this conversation. So I'm playing Fifa
Speaker 1: with my son and I see, I see he's calling
Speaker 1: my phone. I'm looking at phone. Why is he calling me?
Speaker 1: And then I remember that I played this move of
Speaker 1: like you've got until Friday to buy a company. So
Speaker 1: so as soon as I remembered, I'm like, don't answer
Speaker 1: the phone. So I just let the phone ring. So
Speaker 1: he keeps ringing like he's banging the phone at this point,
Speaker 1: so I turned the TV down. I'm like, Greig, I
Speaker 1: just stepped out. And he said, and he says, you
Speaker 1: need to not take any offers. I need to speak
Speaker 1: to you. You need to step out of the meeting right now.
Speaker 1: I said, look, Greg, if you want to make me offer,
Speaker 1: email it to me. I'm in the board meeting right now,
Speaker 1: contult phone. And then this like just happened for the
Speaker 1: next fifteen minutes. This kept happening, and then he sent us.
Speaker 1: He sent us an offer just on the one hundred,
Speaker 1: and I said to him, you know, I told him
Speaker 1: I stepped out at the meeting and I said, Tom, look,
Speaker 1: I really want to do this still with you. I'm
Speaker 1: really going to try it and if this number quite
Speaker 1: gets you there, but I'm going to like stop these
Speaker 1: discussions so that we can progress this. You know, Let's
Speaker 1: take two or three days, see where we can get
Speaker 1: it to. And yeah, we got it to, got to
Speaker 1: one twenty five. Brilliant.
Speaker 3: It's a brilliant.
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