Frank Holmes

Tom: Welcome everyone to the very first Business Secret Podcast. I’m delighted to Welcome Frank Holmes as our inaugural guest. For those of you who don’t know who Frank is, he’s the founding partner of Gambit, one of Wales’ leading Corporate Finance specialists. Frank’s a dealmaker and has been voted Dealmaker of the Year on three separate occasions. He’s chairman of the regional economic growth partnership board, governor of Cardiff Met University, Chair of the board at Bobath, and is recognised as a leader of one if not THE most active corporate finance practices in Wales over the past decade. He’s coached and mentored many business owners over the years and helped many improve their businesses and prepare for an exit. Most importantly he wrote the foreword for our book The Business Secret. Welcome, Frank.

 

Frank: Good Afternoon

 

Tom: Okay Frank, so tell us a little bit more about you and Gambit.

 

Frank: Well Gambit is a 29-year-old firm, it was founded in Cardiff Bay, where it still resides having gone around the city over a couple of iterations. It’s had a fantastic journey, we’ve managed to undertake some of the leading transactions in the principality and beyond, done a lot of work internationally as well. It’s a people business, and therefore, it relies very heavily on the quality and calibre of the individuals in the team. The business is probably one of the worst business models I know, it relies purely on tenacity and success because of the way in which we generate our income, most of which is success-fee led. On the other hand, its stood the test of time, not saying that I’s immortal by any stretch of the imagination, no business is, but its still here and it’s still going very well.

 

Tom: Fantastic, just quickly you mentioned there about model and success fees. So if you had your time again would you change anything?

 

Frank: Unfortunately, if I could I would. I’m always fascinated by different business models and some business models are far more robust than others, particularly when you start to look at the razorblade and the moat, these are the names that are known for different styles of income generation. This is nature of the industry and clients tend to want a success fee-based outcome, and in some respects, it’s the ultimate judgment that you select or you get yourself appointed to do a particular transaction on the basis that you believe in it and that you can deliver it. So I think that they go hand in hand with the nature of the work and the nature of the billing.

 

Tom: So how did you end up here then?

 

Frank: I started life in South Wales University. I was a surfer, which I’m not currently anymore which is a shame, and having taken a couple of years off surfing around South America my father got very annoyed and asked me to go and do something with my life. So, I chose to do oceanography, and in the UK there was only Southampton and Swansea that did the degree. Low and behold, the Swansea prospectus had a surfer within it so I made that my decision, came to Wales where the water was absolutely freezing, it rained all the time and you had to wear a wetsuit which was a complete new world to me. Nonetheless, towards the end of my degree, I had an opportunity to go for interviews with Deloitte and others, and in fact, at the same time, I was offered the opportunity to research and stay at the university and get a Ph.D. which my girlfriend then was already embarking on. My tutor, in utter amazement and also very wise, said; “Well Frank, why don’t you choose between these two things. Stay here and use our wonderful oceanographic vessel or take that job with Deloitte and buy your own boat.”, so that lead me into Deliottes where I joined the profession, qualified as a Chartered accountant, went into an industry at a time where partnership wasn’t available (even though I was on the fast track) and decided to take up a job in industry. I went in as finance director owned by a well-known engineering business run by an acquitted company and subsequently became Managing Director about 6 or 7 months later. I ran the business for a few years, it was a business that needed a huge turnaround, it was stuck in the depths of the old Ministry of Defence cost plus era. I lead that, and then we suddenly became less interesting to the holding company that was Aerospace Engineering PLC fully listed. I took it upon myself to go, having spoken to a couple of colleagues, and put the idea of a management buy-out to them, knowing that if they rejected it that I was going home very swiftly. We raised the money with three I’s, Barclay’s Bank, and Welsh Government, and bought the business in ‘92. I ended up selling it in ’96 in between which I started the Gambit journey.

Despite leaving Deloitte, in 1989 they retained me until 2004 on a fantastic consultancy which involved running around South America, namely Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina and recovering moneys in Europe as well that had been effectively embezzled for an Italian bank. Some of you will remember the famous God’s Banker who was found hanging under Blackfriars bridge, so I was one of the chief negotiators in recovering hundreds of millions of dollars from some very colourful individuals.

 

Tom: So how did you acquire the skills to be able to do that at such a young age?

 

Frank: I guess you just, you know, one of the things that makes or breaks you is being thrown in at the deep end. When I look back on my career I’ve been thrown in at the deep end a lot, but I’ve also thrown myself in the deep end and that’s when you learn to sink or swim. When you start to think about mentors, it’s quite often that mentors that throw you in at the very deep end because they have some confidence in your ability to get out. It’s like everything else, you learn on the job, you put the effort in, you try to be a little bit creative. I am slightly Dyslexic which I see as a gift, sometimes I see things very differently from other people, which sometimes helps to find a solution that maybe isn’t obvious to others.

 

Tom: As you remember we talk a lot in the book about people having mentors for business. We both had mentors supporting us from the start, I believe, but I would suggest that you’re still a mentor to a lot of young business owners. Helping them out with their business strategies, and how they’re eventually going to exit their businesses. So do you yourself still have a mentor?

 

Frank: Not as such that I could probably name, but there are people who I really admire and enjoy listening to and enjoy asking questions of, and enjoy bouncing things off absolutely. I think that life is a journey and there will always be people that you can learn from, there are always people who are cleverer, more capable, more experienced than yourself. You should embrace that and make the most of it.

 

Tom: So when you started Gambit did you have someone to use then?

 

Frank: Not at all, no, that was a pretty lonely time I guess. It was equally lonely for the other partner that I started with, and that was one of the reasons that we felt that sharing the loneliness was better with two than one. In this business, you tend to be a sort of maverick and to be reasonably self-assured, but such is the model that actually you need somebody else to lean on if your things aren’t going to plan and hen hopefully theirs is and vice versa. That’s how a partnership works in this business and, you know, I’ve questioned the whole concept of partnership from time to time. Particularly the larger ones where you’re actually just a glorified manager but this is a true partnership.

 

Tom: Fantastic, I would suggest you’ve probably taken many risks during your years in business. What’s the biggest risks or the ones that stand out to you?

 

Frank: Again, one of the things was actually stepping outside of my engineering business to start Gambit. Having been out of the profession for roughly 6 years, deciding to go back into the profession where there’s a completely different set of circumstances. When you’re in a manufacturing business, for example, your whole focus is on a pretty limited number of customers, not different from a limited number of clients, but actually, the way you have to generate income in a professional context is a much wider network. So you’re not just looking for clients, you’re looking for sources of funding, the banks, private equity, you’re looking for relationships with other professionals and tax in the legal profession and so on.  So it’s a very different dynamic and, of course, you don’t build up a pipeline overnight and that’s one of the reasons that this particular business is probably not facing too many competitors in the locality, because it takes months and months to get transactions into the pipe and then it takes months and months to get them over the line. During that whole journey, believe me, you’re still paying the bills, paying for your staff, your premises and everything else. If those deals don’t come off you’ve got no income to look forward to either. So, it is a very different animal sending out an invoice for what you’ve manufactured this month or this stage payment on a particularly large project, so cashflow is somewhat more interesting.

 

Tom: Starting this up in ’95 with no clients and minimal connections. What was your first marketing strategy?

 

Frank: I decided to do what I knew best and I looked for opportunities as interim management. I ended up running, as it happened, three factories two for overseas owners in manufacturing, and again, that’s something you can only do so many of. I mean how many factories can only one person run? I think I was at my limit because I was also building a house and still doing the Deloitte work, and still checking my own business. So, it was quite a busy time with a very young family, but by doing that I had an income, I had income from them, what I call the Mafia work, the income from these interim MD jobs with American owners and a Welsh company as well and used every time and every moment I could to start looking for deal flow.

 

Tom: So when was the tipping point where you suddenly realised that you could just go away and just do the deal making?

 

Frank: It took probably about 9 months from joining but, of course, you can’t just put your foot down and stop things, you have to have an orderly transition to extricate yourself from circumstances. That’s what we did, but that being said, the banking work carried on for another 9 years so that was an income that I brought into the firm and it helped pay my way through the practice.

 

Tom: So to go from 0-9 months, getting leads within those nine months it seems very good. Again, what marketing would you have used?

 

Frank: Well I was leveraging off existing relationships with banks through my business, but also, reaching into the professional community. I still have a lot of friends in the accountancy world, I still had quite a few number of personal contacts and believe it or not you can even pick up a deal in a pub. So it’s all about being attentive really at the end of the day, and being open to signals or open to suggestions and just pursuing those and that’s what we did.

 

Tom: So let’s just be clear, Frank Holmes is now promoting going out for a drink in order to generate business.

 

Frank: There’s many a time I’ve picked up, you might forget what you were doing that night but the one thing I never forget is a deal.

 

Tom: So do you have any other marketing tips? The pub mentality isn’t really what it used to be nowadays with coffee shops popping up all over the place, so I was just wondering if you’ve got any other tips outside of that for start-ups and early day businesses?

 

Frank: For me, I guess, the best… I’m not a big fan of pitching up as one of three in competition because more often than not the decision’s been made and one or two of you are being used for benchmarking and pricing and so forth. For me, the best way to do business is to be introduced by a trusted intermediary who has the ear of the client because you’re going in with a warm welcome rather than a cold stone face who’s really not here or that interested because we’ve already made our mind up but we just trying to do the process. I think a lot of time can be wasted doing that, and I’ve actually had on two occasions that I can remember, one was run by Three I’s and one that was run by a well-known company locally. On both occasions, my pitch was contrary to what they wanted to say or hear, and I told both on both occasions that it wasn’t the right time and they would probably suffer or not be successful. So they asked me in both cases why was I in the room and I said ‘Well you invited me’, so I thought I’d come along as say what I thought rather than what you wanted to hear because I don’t do that. Literally, in both cases and one in particular almost a year to the day both pitched up again and said I was right and that they didn’t achieve it ‘Can you come back for us now and help us get to where we want to get to?’. The lesson there as well is don’t tell people what they want to hear because it’s a complete waste of time for you and them.

 

Tom: With that being said, what do you think your greatest failure is so far? Something that maybe hasn’t worked as well as you wanted to. Okay, so maybe not a failure but something that hasn’t worked or something you would’ve done differently now you’re looking back?

 

Frank: Well failure is a good word because we all have it, it’s something that you can bury in the depths of your mind or you can actually, from time to time, reflect on but not maybe too long just to make sure you don’t make that mistake again. For me, it was having got the factory in Cardiff and being at that whippersnapper age of invincibility decide to create a whole new business in North Wales. In the same sector of aerospace and defence, but this time instead of using metal we used carbon composite material. I guess then persuading and enchanted about the idea of doing that type of work for the likes of British Aerospace and some of the MOD companies, set up this factory, funded it, raised a bit of money and used our own money from Cardiff. Then the customers didn’t turn up. Basically, what had happened in the interim they had suffered a downturn in their business and decided to take it in-house rather than put it out into the subcontract market, so I guess the lesson there is to do your due diligence extensively, keep in touch with your customer, and make sure that if it has gone wrong and you can’t really see light at the end of the tunnel don’t let it drag on. We had to cut our losses, we had to close the factory. If I had let it go on, and I did let it go on too long, thankfully we cut it in time ashamedly I agree but we saved the business in Cardiff from being dragged down by a start-up in North Wales. And start-ups are, by nature, very precarious projects and precarious situations. So the big message there is to be very good on your due diligence, get close to your customer, make sure that they’re going to be there when you are ready to go.

 

Tom: In Chapter 7 of the book we talk a lot about recruiting the right people for your business. You’ve obviously recruited well in your own business along and throughout your journey and can see others recruiting in different positions. What’s your usual process when it comes to recruitment?

Frank: Well in the good old days when there were more corporate finance experienced people in the market we used to just go out and steal them, that was probably our best tactic. Either through an intermediary or direct or indirectly through others. That has changed significantly, so if you think about the down-turn in 2008 and the crash that we all went through that probably exterminated a lot of on-going recruitment and indeed corporate finance expertise in the market. It certainly is very scant at the moment, but from talking to clients across many sectors finding good quality, skilled experienced people is difficult for everybody. That being said, what we’ve decided to do about three years ago was to create our own internal system of attracting graduates and at the incoming level as analysts and training them and outing them through professional qualifications allowing them to join the deal teams and progress to a firm. We’ve got a couple of outstanding young guys who are now on a very solid trajectory within the firm. To answer your question, we don’t always get it right there will be some where there’ll be some fallout along the way but thus far it’s looking good. We’ve got another couple of people joining us next month and I guess what I always look at in the context of who we’re recruiting is ‘Has that person got the potential to be a partner in this business? And do I think that that person could go the distance and be a partner’ because those are the people I want to take the firm forward.

 

Tom: Have you got any particular questioning techniques that you like to use or tools that you have in your arsenal when it comes to interviewing people? So for instance, if you had ten people sat in front of you who are looking for that same job is there anything you do particularly or is it more on a gut feel basis?

 

Frank: There’s a lot of gut feel, as we all know. The day you think your gut isn’t working is the day to start doing something else and I think there is instinct. You can generally tell, when you’ve been doing it a long time, whether people have come and they’re well prepared, they’ve asked the right questions, they seem to be able to answer your questions, you do put some low-ballers in there. I know we have been guilty of almost intimidating people by the sort of questions, I don’t say this proudly, but our business isn’t considered to be a wallflower, we are quite an intensive group of people, we are deal junkies through and through. We love the chase, we love the win, and that maybe puts us a little bit outside of the normal nice office environment. Our gender balance, by the way, is absolutely terrible because its very male dominated. That being said, I’m delighted that we’ll be announcing that we’ve got another lady joining the firm that’ll make two which means we’ve double headcount. On the other hand, it’s difficult, we could love to be far more balanced in that context but there is a lot of testosterone going in this office so it’d be good to see if can dilute that a bit. Gender is irrelevant in my view and I’ll say that in any context.

 

Tom: You mentioned earlier about juggling a few balls and that having a young family and running a factories can be quite difficult. In Chapter 5 of the book we talk about work/life balance and how it can be very important to make sure you not only have your business assets and everything working well for you but also you still have time for your family. So over the years, what have you learnt about work/life balance?

 

Frank: It’s always been bad but, I guess when you’re self-employed, it’s very difficult to separate business and personal lives. Some people are much better at it then others, I haven’t got that discipline I’m afraid its just the way I am. My wife will tell you that clients come first and it’s not something I’m proud of but it’s something that evolves in this business of corporate finance. You tend to be acting on a particular phase of someone’s career or life and is something they’ve built which is very precious to them, particularly if you’re selling, but therefore  for them it’s the most important thing that they’ve done in their lifecycle of business. And therefore, they expect you to be available to them 24/7, but we do have 24/7 clients. The other thing, of course, is that the key and the secret is to make them think that they’re the only deal that you’re doing at the same time and that’s quite a juggling act. That there’s no other deal going on when in fact, certainly the partners here, most of us are working on six, seven, or eight deals at any one time.

 

Tom: If you had your time again do you think you’d do anything differently when it came to looking after yourself?

 

Frank: It would’ve had to have been in a very different business. I guess, to wind the clock back and do something different… I’ve never really given that much thought. I guess, I’ve really enjoyed this career and really enjoyed the diversity and the different types of clients, the different types of businesses; Size, Scale, Jurisdiction, Successes, the highs and lows, and the camaraderie of having good partners. I like the idea of being self-employed as well, I cherish it, but that comes at a price. And that’s where the work/life balance does probably take a big of suffering, but as you know, the R word doesn’t exist in my vocabulary. It came up at lunch today, retirement is not on the agenda.

 

Tom: So I’m getting the impression that you really do love what you do. You always seem to be on it but really enjoying yourself.

 

Frank: Yes, absolutely. It’s an adrenaline thrill at times, I’d hate to think what would happen if stepped off the conveyer belt. And you do hear stories of that, so I think that being carried out, as the boys joke here, carried out here in a box is probably the right way.

 

Tom: We like to talk a lot in our book and business about business owners planning for the future. We try our best not to talk about the R word but instead decide to use ‘Financial Freedom’ as the term, So people are often working out of choice rather than necessity. Obviously, you’ve facilitated a lot of people by helping sell their businesses for quite large sums of money, we won’t talk about your exit plan in particular as it doesn’t sound like there is much of one, but what do you find when it comes to business owners after they’ve sold? Do they stay away? Do they come back? What usually happens to them? Do they decide that once they’ve sold their business they’re done? Or do they look to try and come back for more?

 

Frank: It depends, normally on how they are at the time. So you will find serial entrepreneurs who will be of an age, and actually that’s probably not quite right because I’ve just thought of something. I teach and I praise people a lot, as for starting up again the trouble is it can go from one extreme where they think that they’ve been so successful in, I don’t know, selling clothes, you know big retail businesses and everything they touch will be Midas, and actually what ever they tough thereafter goes south. That’s primarily because they haven’t really put the level of effort in to really getting underneath the business model they’re investing in. Also, the fact that the world has changed since they started that business, and the business they’ve just come out of was probably the right time to get out of it. Sometimes you’ll see the frustration of people who have decided to go back but they actually don’t make it again, and I’ve seen people waste a lot of their money trying to do that. There are absolute geniuses who will come out of one business and start something up completely different but they’ve taken some very good lessons and some very good disciplines in to the next era, and I’ve seen that work. I’ve also seen people doing it of all ages, one of my favourite stories is on succession planning, is when we talk to banks and that about addressing it with their customers, which I believe is their responsibility, is to never to assume that because somebody’s 70 years of age that they’ve decided to hang up their boots. I phoned up two clients, who we sold for over £30million, within ten days of that transaction about to say ‘How are you feeling? What are you going to plan to do with your life?’ Because now I’m a bit older and have an understanding, and talk about life after the exit. But in this case, I nearly said to Trevor ‘Trevor, I guess you’re going to hang up your boots’, thank god I didn’t because he turned around and said ‘Oh me and Roy have just started another business’, they’re now in their 80’s and they’re planning on again, and this will be their third time and they’ll make a pile of money doing that this time as well.

 

Tom: Fantastic, yeah we have a lot of these conversations with our clients when it comes to them finishing that job or selling their business. We’re finding less and less people are now looking to ride off into the sunset and cruise around the world, and instead people are asking themselves what they want to do next, whether that’s work for charities, start a new business.

 

Frank: That’s a very good point, I mean, sharing your experience in different ways with different organisations is a very fulfilling thing to do. In that context, one of the reasons I sit on the board at Bobath, and have for fifteen years, is to give some time back because I think time is more valuable than writing a cheque. But also, is to keep an eye on their financial position because charities are even worse models than Gambit. They are really only sustained by the good will of the donors and there are plenty of charities out there and everyone’s fighting for the same pound notes. I think if you can give back in that way, if you can give back in education and help schools become slightly more business-like, commercialise themselves, universities are the same, then I think that’s a nice fulfilling way to give back. It doesn’t always need to be compensated in a monetary context, it can be compensated in a very self-fulfilling way without actually receiving an income.

 

Tom: So you see a lot of businesses, sectors and ran a few other businesses yourself. If you were starting again, straight from the off completely from scratch. What would you do with recruitment, marketing, cashflow, and what would your top three tips be for yourself if you were starting all over again?

 

Frank: I think there’s a number of things. If we start at with the mindset of going into anything, and I think that’s a mindset of thorough preparation in everything that you do. So good quality analysis investigation, and we’re now in an era where information is so accessible you can help yourself in that respect. I think the other thing is never to compromise on quality whatever you do, quality is king. This business is all about quality and reputation, we’re only as good as the last deal. If you go into it in that sense then do always think about some of the key dynamics of return on investment. So when you decide to invest in an initiative and a marketing programme, or in new equipment or technology, or even spending a day playing golf, ask yourself where’s the ROI on this activity or this investment. I think that’s a really good discipline. And the other one, which is I’ve always found useful and I mentioned it in your book, is that when you have any doubts about or you’re thinking about doing something and you’re trying to challenge yourself as to whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing, I always come back around to the point where I ask myself ‘If a client was asking you about this, what would you tell them to do?’. It’s a very easy and powerful way of getting yourself back on track if you’re starting to meander a bit. We sometimes, as a partnership, some of us might want to go off and do some particular investment, if you like, in a particular opportunity or structure a fee in a particular way. We bring ourselves back to ground by saying ‘Is that what you’d advise a client to do?’. And it’s very powerful. Because when you reflect and you say maybe not, maybe I’d be doing it slightly differently or do it at all. So that’s very powerful, and I guess the old mantra as well, in terms of really understanding a business model, understanding that business planning plans are just creative writing. We can all write business plans, but actually getting under the model and understanding what it is you’re out to do, and where are you solving the problem for the end customer so there is a link between the customer and the business model that you’re pursuing, that’s fundamental. I guess, if you get through all of that, just remember the one thing that really counts is that cash is king. Turnover, the old saying is that sanity is vanity. Cash is sanity.

 

Tom: So just to bring this to an end Frank, I’ve got a coupe of quick-fire questions for you in a second. Before that, what does the future look like for Gambit and what do you want it to look like?

 

Frank: Well we’re in very interesting times so I’m still here, clearly, you’ve got Geraint who is another M&A specialist who joined the firm 15 years ago and has been a partner for at least 12 of those, if not more. I brought him in from KPMG and he’s an outstanding operator and he’s having a very good time, I’d be amazed if he doesn’t get Dealmaker this year. Then we’ve got Jason who brings a whole new debt advisory service, so we’ll see that as counter-cyclical when private equity starts to re-trench because they’re paying too much for their investments there aren’t enough around, the world will vote to debt funding and we’re seeing that in certain sectors. He’s a ex-banker, ex-POVC, he’s got a big network, he’s been a corporate banker for many years; HSBC, Lloyds etc. so that’s a really exciting place for us, and I can see that debt advisory extending beyond private sector into the public sector, because the public sector now is going to need to evade itself of funding from the private sector, so we can be that bridge. Then we’ve got Jamie who was a successful private equity player, he has worked for Three I’s, Berringea, Natwest Capital, he brings a whole new dynamic in terms of some more interesting and very sizable transactions where I’m hoping we’ll be able to take some participation as well. So in terms of the future, those three, who are much younger than me in their own right, have a whole new ear to look forward to. We’re covering the basis in terms of MNA, Debt, and Private Equity. And then behind that are coming two or three really good individuals who I think, between them, well certainly one or two of them will get to the partnership, so there is a pretty good lineage for the firm, and as a people business that’s all we’ve got. I think, without question, we’re all very different. We perform differently, we have different personal skills, certainly in terms of capability they’re all there. They just may do things differently and that’s what makes the world go round.

 

Tom: Okay, so a couple of quick-fire questions so just the listeners can get to know a little bit more about Frank Holmes the individual rather than Frank Holmes the business owner. So what books are you currently reading?

 

Frank: ‘Capitalism without Capital’ is just all about this whole new ears that we’re going into where balance sheets are going to have to display intellectual property, which banks and traditional funders haven’t really got their heads around. They can understand a building, and they can understand a piece of equipment, they can understand a debtor book, but actually they don’t understand  how to collateralise patents, know-how, and so forth. So if you think about the world of tomorrow and artificial intelligence there are going to be a lot of short businesses out there with virtual balance sheets but they’re going to need funding. So it’s a very interesting transition, I think, we’re going through where the funders are going to have to their heads around actually funding things which are less tangible, they notice in-tangible is sort of in our bean counting world.

 

Tom: Well I certainly enjoyed the last book you recommended to me but the name currently escapes me. It was about what you believe to be true, it really was a fantastic read. IT would recommend that book to anybody and I’ll make sure to put the name of it in the notes for listeners to go and find that themselves. So to a business owner sitting here, hopefully you’ve picked up some tips to what the best books are to read.

 

Frank: Warren Buffet and his essays. So if you were to ask me who do I actually idolise

 

Tom: I was going to, but go on…

 

Frank: In a lifetime they’ve built 700billion under management, 100billion of it in cash, and in Warren’s latest article, which I read a few weeks ago, he says he’s the happiest 88 year old in the world. It’s not because he’s got all the money but because he’s had so much fun.

 

Tom: Yes, absolutely. So what music are you listening to?

 

Frank: Despite my grey hair I’m a big fan of House Nation, so I love House Nation but I still have on in my car The Rolling Stones live in Cuba, which is where I was born, it’s a fantastic live album. I like live concert music, so I’ve got them on there, and one or two others that probably hark back to the days of The Doors and so forth. So I’m a little bit stuck in that era but on the more forward looking I do like House music.

Tom: So givens that this is a Podcast are there any other Podcasts that you’re listening to at the moment? That you would recommend for our listeners?

 

Frank: TED because of the variety and they give you some inspirational ideas.

 

Tom: What about boxsets or Tv Shows, are there any that are an absolute must for you?

 

Frank: The one, I guess, I shouldn’t admit to but I do love Narcos because it’s all about the drug industry around South America, where I was brought up and I can relate to some of that, not taking drugs or trafficking them but it tends to have a lot of Spanish in it which I speak fluently. The other one that I really enjoy is Peaky Blinders and it’s very interesting.

 

Tom: Well thanks to Frank for giving up his time for our listeners, I’ve got some key points of the conversation that I’m going to go out and see if you still think that’s alright? So we’ve got; A bet on Geraint to become Dealmaker of the Year, Whatever you do go in with the right mindset, Use your Network and look for people you can be introduced to, Whatever you do do your due diligence, and make sure whatever you produce is absolutely top quality, and make sure that you don’t stay in something too long if you don’t think its working for you. How does that sound Frank?

 

Frank: That’s a fair summing up, it’s been a pleasure, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s been, how you say, cathartic. Bit of therapy.

 

Tom: Well I hope you feel better for it, and thanks for chatting today