Cross-Border Carve-Out Finance Separation Director — Specialty Logistics

The mandate

The seller has signed exclusivity for a temperature-controlled logistics unit whose legal entities, treasury, procurement and finance systems remain embedded in a broader regional group. The narrow problem is to produce a buyer-operable finance perimeter by completion while preventing stranded cost, broken cash control or indefinite reliance on seller processes across Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong.

The engagement must deliver a finance separation blueprint, standalone opening-balance workbook, Day-1 control book, transition-service schedule, bank-account and authority matrix, stranded-cost baseline and TSA-exit plan. Each artefact must reconcile the transaction perimeter to legal agreements and identify where shared people, licences, data or intercompany balances prevent immediate separation.

By 23 October 2026, milestone one will establish the perimeter, dependency inventory and issue-valued baseline. Milestone two on 4 December will provide buyer-reviewed opening balances and signed TSA service descriptions; milestone three on 29 January 2027 will complete a mock Day-1 close and cash-control rehearsal; final acceptance on 26 February requires the operational cutover pack, exit roadmap and knowledge transfer.

The Divestment Steering Committee will accept the work only when sampled balances trace to ledgers and sale schedules, every critical finance process has a named Day-1 operator, bank authorities have been rehearsed, TSA service levels and charges are measurable, and the buyer records no unresolved severity-one finance dependency. The final project-fee tranche is contingent on those tests, not merely document submission.

The client will provide a clean-team protocol, data-room access, legal-entity controllers, transaction documents and a finance systems architect, with the CFO resolving blocked access within forty-eight hours. The consultant controls scope, analysis and artefact quality but cannot sign completion accounts, negotiate purchase-price terms or direct employees outside the agreed workstreams.

Why this is external work

Group finance designed the shared model and is therefore poorly placed to challenge its own assumptions about separability and stranded cost. The buyer has also asked for a neutral evidence trail ahead of completion. External leadership provides concentrated carve-out experience and political independence without distracting the controllers who must still run statutory close and customer billing.

What you will own

• Reconcile the sold perimeter across legal entities, contracts, employees, assets, intercompany accounts and management-reporting dimensions in a signed scope matrix.
• Quantify standalone finance cost and stranded seller cost by process, location and exit date, distinguishing unavoidable duplication from negotiable TSA demand.
• Construct the opening-balance workbook with allocation logic, tax basis, intercompany settlement, foreign-exchange treatment and a controlled bridge to transaction schedules.
• Draft measurable TSA schedules for record-to-report, payables, payroll interfaces, treasury and tax, including volumes, service levels, charges, controls and exit prerequisites.
• Run a mock Day-1 close that tests bank access, cash visibility, invoicing, supplier payment, journal approval, consolidation and escalation across all three countries.
• Maintain a buyer-facing decision ledger that records disputed dependencies, owner, financial exposure, negotiated resolution and documentary support.
• Package the accepted Day-1 control book, authority matrix, cutover sequence, TSA-exit roadmap and operator training as the final separation dossier.

Candidate qualifications

• Directed finance separation for a completed cross-border carve-out involving at least three jurisdictions and can evidence Day-1 operation plus subsequent TSA exits.
• Built defensible standalone and stranded-cost models from shared-service data, including allocation challenges raised by a buyer or independent reviewer.
• Produced carve-out opening balances, completion-account inputs and legal-entity reconciliations that traced cleanly to both ledgers and transaction agreements.
• Negotiated finance TSA content at service, control, volume and pricing level rather than treating the schedule as a generic list of activities.
• Led mock closes or cutover rehearsals spanning banking, billing, payables, payroll interfaces, tax and consolidation under transaction confidentiality.
• Worked directly with CFOs, deal counsel and buyer teams at director or partner-equivalent level while respecting clean-team and competition constraints.

Non-negotiables

• Able to mobilise in Singapore and sustain the specified Malaysia and Hong Kong travel throughout the five-month calendar.
• Free of conflicts with the buyer, seller's transaction adviser and any current bidder for the divested business.
• Will accept milestone payment against traced balances, rehearsed controls and buyer-tested severity thresholds.
• Has personally owned cross-border finance-separation artefacts, not only a central transaction PMO or diligence stream.

1. 49 words maximum. Which finance dependency most often appears after a carve-out perimeter seems agreed, and how have you exposed it?
2. 49 words maximum. Describe the acceptance evidence you used for a buyer to approve a standalone opening-balance workbook.
3. 49 words maximum. How would you price and govern a treasury TSA whose transaction volumes are uncertain at signing?