Six appointments in transport and property finance

Mandate

Fund the replacement of the main cableway and prepare for the concessions falling due by 2031 without breaching covenants or suspending distributions for longer than necessary.

Outcomes

• Fixed CHF 85 million of borrowing for eight years in February 2023; net debt peaked at 4.6 times EBITDA during construction
• Closed the Schattenegg winter sector and recognised an impairment of CHF 11.2 million
• Funded a CHF 14.6 million heating programme through a two-year dividend suspension
• Published a dividend policy of 30 to 40 per cent of free cash flow after maintenance investment

Decisions in context

I was appointed with the main cableway's concession due to end in 2025, so the first task was to finance its replacement. That decision shaped almost everything that followed. The gondola absorbed our borrowing capacity, which is why the lower sector had to justify its own chairlift and why the hotel heating programme was paid for from the dividend rather than a loan. I spend more time than my predecessor did with the technical director and the property manager, because the figures I take to the board are only as reliable as their replacement estimates and tenant information. I also spend time with shareholders, many of whom I meet in the village rather than at investor events. Since 2020 I have chaired the board of our property subsidiary. I attend the main board as an executive and have never held a seat on it.

Reason for the move

Current appointment; seeking one independent non-executive seat alongside it, with my chair's consent.

Mandate

Integrate two acquired village hotels and prepare the funding case for replacing the 1987 aerial cableway.

Outcomes

• Brought the two acquired hotels onto group accounting within one financial year
• Showed the hotels' dependence on lower-slope operations openly in budgets
• Prepared the board's first fifteen-year funding plan for concession renewals

Decisions in context

The purchase of two village hotels in 2016 for CHF 19 million was the board's decision; making them readable inside a lift company was mine. Their owners had run maintenance through operating costs for decades, so our first year of group accounts showed lower margins than the sale documents had suggested. I explained the difference to the board as a change in method rather than a deterioration. The more important finding came later. In winters when the lower slopes opened late, hotel occupancy fell with them, so the acquisition had doubled our exposure to the same weather. I set out that dependence in the budget and in the funding case for the cableway replacement, which I prepared with the technical director over two winters. The work gave the board its first fifteen-year view of concession renewals and how they might be paid for.

Reason for the move

Appointed CFO on my predecessor's retirement.

Mandate

Give the board a view of each installation's earnings and remaining life.

Outcomes

• Built a register of concession dates, condition ratings and replacement costs for every installation
• Introduced operating-day records by sector covering ten winters
• Separated summer and winter results in management reporting

Decisions in context

I arrived with a transport and property background and found a company that reported its results by season but planned its investment largely by habit. The board saw total revenue, total costs and a list of projects. I began by asking the technical team for every installation's concession date and condition rating, then matched them with the operating days each sector had achieved. It took most of a year, partly because some records existed only in the memory of long-serving lift staff. The register made one pattern hard to ignore: our most expensive renewals fell between 2024 and 2031, while the sectors needing them were earning less each decade. I did not propose answers at that stage. My role was to put the dates and the earnings side by side, so that the board could begin discussing them before they became urgent.

Reason for the move

Promoted to deputy CFO when the company acquired two village hotels.

Mandate

Plan renovation spending against the remaining terms of municipal building rights while keeping distributions to the owner steady.

Outcomes

• Mapped each car park's building-right expiry against its renovation needs
• Agreed extensions to two building rights, with higher indexed ground rents, before major renovations
• Kept annual distributions to the pension fund within a narrow band through the 2008–2009 downturn

Decisions in context

Most of our car parks stood on land that cities had granted under building rights of fifty to seventy years, with ground rents that rose with an index. Some concrete decks needed heavy renovation twenty years before their right expired; others would be handed back at about the time they wore out. I learnt that a renovation was worth funding only when the remaining term allowed it to earn back its cost. In two cases we agreed an extension with the city before committing to the work, accepting a higher ground rent in return. The pension fund valued steady distributions, and during the 2008–2009 downturn I had to explain why we kept renovation spending while revenue fell. Those years left me with a lasting interest in the contract dates that sit behind a property's value.

Reason for the move

Moved to a listed operating company with larger asset renewals ahead.

Mandate

Separate the costs of the ordered timetable from those of infrastructure and commercial activities.

Outcomes

• Introduced cost allocation by line that the ordering authorities accepted
• Prepared quarterly reports for the board's finance committee from 2004
• Built the first ten-year rolling-stock replacement plan

Decisions in context

Our regional passenger services were ordered by the Confederation and the cantons, which paid the costs that fares did not cover, so every budget was also a discussion with public authorities. They wanted to know what each line cost to run and why. Our accounts mixed the timetable, the track, the stations and a small freight business. Over two years I rebuilt the cost allocation by line and by activity, with operating managers checking each assumption. It made some lines look more expensive than the authorities had believed, which was uncomfortable for everyone. From 2004 I presented quarterly figures to the board's finance committee, my first regular contact with directors. I also prepared the first ten-year plan for replacing rolling stock. Public money taught me that a cost must be explainable to someone outside the company before it is defensible inside it.

Reason for the move

Wanted responsibility for property and capital allocation in a commercially owned company.

Mandate

Carry out statutory audits and, from 2000, plan and supervise engagements.

Outcomes

• Managed about twelve audit engagements a year from 2000
• Added asset-replacement questions to the planning of tourism and utility audits
• Trained four new audit assistants

Decisions in context

I joined straight from university and spent most of five winters travelling to clients in tourism and public services. A statutory audit asks whether the accounts are fairly stated, and I learnt to answer that carefully. What stayed with me, though, was the gap between a correct annual result and the next large payment. A mountain railway could receive a clean opinion while its main cableway approached the end of its concession. A hotel could report a profit while its roof and kitchen needed replacing. As a manager from 2000 I began asking clients about their replacement plans during planning meetings. Some welcomed it; others reminded me, fairly, that it lay outside the engagement. By 2002 I wanted to be on the other side of those conversations, responsible for the plan rather than for reviewing it.

Reason for the move

Wanted to work inside an organisation and carry responsibility for its decisions.