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