Hardly a day goes by when the mighty Blaminio plc isn’t linked to yet another high-profile corporate raid.
We’ve certainly been burning that cash pile the City boys love to talk about at quite a rate.
And it’s fair to say the directors have never been backwards in coming forwards as they continue to add to their sprawling empire.
But hubris is an incredible thing. Our executive team is happy to fly in the face of current business fashion.
Not for them, “focusing on core business”, “sticking to the knitting” or simply keeping the group structure lean and mean. No, not for a minute – our corporate strategy has, at times, looked like one big game of Risk.
So can it be any coincidence that they let us out this week for a team building day at the Cheltenham Festival? Maybe it was the board’s way of providing us with some small insight into how its mind worked.
I like to think I’m a pretty experienced finance guy, but I can’t pretend to know what’s going on during those late-night meetings when the executive team is selecting the next unsuspecting victim to devour.
Perhaps a day at the races gave us just enough of a clue as to what does go on when the company wallet is about to be opened and we splash out on some bold new venture.
My fellow jockeys and I were in our element at Cheltenham (naturelment). We were all tooled up with a Blackberry and every little piece of magic that Excel has to offer. However, no macro-laden statistical tool, no matter how complex, could ever beat the bookie.
We had a lot of fun trying, despite not spending any actual money between us. We’re finance, after all. We left the fast and loose stuff to the clowns in sales and marketing.
So let’s say we’ve established that an acquisitive board generally regards its strategy in a similar way that a gnarled gambler studies the form in the Racing Post (minus the roll up and sweaty hands. Usually).
And perhaps that’s not such a bad approach, except that it’s easy to forget that you’re not strictly gambling your own money when you’ve signed off the due diligence and paid that first cheque to the owners of Xyz Ltd in Uzbekistan (world leaders in yak-based solutions).
There are some situations that even the most cleverly crafted spreadsheet or fiendishly ingenious group structure cannot get you out of.
I know that this assessment might come as a shock to some spreadsheet jockeys but there are times when even our old friends Solver and Goal Seek can’t help out.
Back in Cheltenham we did our best to try and break the bookie, but it was, naturally, an impossible task. It was tough on a hand held. Any spreadsheet jockey worth his (or her) salt will tell you that the bigger the screen, the more elaborate and beautiful our solutions can be.
One of the gang started by simply taking four columns, writing the horses’ names in the far left column, the number in the next, the odds in the one after that and a formula in the final column.
The plan was to try to figure out any combination of bet placed that would either make it impossible to lose on the race (okay, unlikely) or to at least mitigate our risk – you could tell that some of the treasury guys had tagged along for the ride.
I have to admit it was a simplistic approach that bore very little fruit. You soon realise that the heavier the favourite and the more spread the odds, the more difficult it becomes.
Our spreadsheet told us that putting a tenner on a horse at 5/1 would give us winnings of only £2 and our stake back. If we bet on anything else at the same time, that return would give us very little room to manoeuvre.
One of the gang suggested using Solver, or “Steve Olver” as he has become known in our office, particularly around budget time.
Now, I know that regular readers of the column are bound to have Solver in their armoury for those tricky budgeting situations, but in case you don’t then check out the “tools” menu in Excel and go halfway down. This little number will save you weeks of time.
If you have a number of different variables that can be manipulated in a formula and you know what your answer should be, then this little helper allows you to do just that. Pick the numbers you feel you can change, stick your answer in and hey presto.
If you’re feeling lazy and don’t even know what cells you want to change to come up with a solution you can chose the “guess” option – brilliant! Just don’t expect it to pick a winner in the 3.45 at Kempton.