A recent interview conducted by the Australian Financial Review's Capital magazine with Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Brambles (ASX: BXB) Mr Zlatko Todorcevski has provided some interesting insights into the future direction of the global logistics firm.
Mr Todorcevski began his career working for BHP Billiton (ASX: BHP) where he joined the miner via its graduate program in 1993. His roles at BHP took him to locations around the world including stints in London and Houston and no doubt gave him a feel for the enormity of providing pallet pooling and logistics services on a global scale. In 2009 Mr Todorcevski moved to the role of CFO at Oil Search (ASX: OSH) where he was involved in the build phase of LNG plants in Papua New Guinea.
Since June 2012, Mr Todorcevski has held the position of CFO at Brambles, joining just in time for the completion of a capital raising which shored up the balance sheet after the US$1.2 billion acquisition of plastic crates pooling business IFCO Systems in 2011. Since his appointment Mr Todorcevski has spent a significant amount of time understanding the options surrounding the document storage business Recall and subsequently implementing its divestment, which should be concluded by the end of the year.
Beyond the Recall divestment, Mr Todorcevski sheds light on future priorities. According to the CFO, "Brambles still has work to do to improve its internal decision-making structures, including capital allocation that involves a budget of about $1 billion annually." He also suggests decisions surrounding the integration of IFCO into the wider Brambles business need to be made to maximise the acquisition, stating "with the size of the company we are and the complexity of the business, we need to focus on how we simplify things and do them consistently and get some leverage and synergies."
Foolish takeaway
Brambles' scale creates a significant competitive advantage for the firm and makes it highly appealing to investors. There are also still significant opportunities for growth. As Mr Todorcevski highlights, emerging markets such as Latin America and Eastern Europe present opportunities and the USA market still offers growth options too.
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Motley Fool contributor Tim McArthur does not own shares in any of the companies mentioned in this article.
