Godfrey Smith spent almost two decades in senior roles
at Bank of America Leasing before ‘retiring’ last month. However,
he has no intention of staying out of the industry forever, finds
Antonio Fabrizio
Godfrey Smith might have just ‘retired’ after a long career with
Bank of America (BofA), but he is certainly not bidding farewell to
leasing forever.
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In fact, despite planning a few months away
travelling around the world in early 2010 – visiting India and New
Zealand – he already misses his ‘leasing life’ and says he will
probably look for new opportunities in leasing again once he gets
back.
But whether or not he finds new leasing roles
in the future, his career has already been quite extraordinary in
many ways.
With a background in accountancy, he took his
first steps in the asset finance world while working in the 1970s
at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), where he was the audit manager
responsible for Lloyds Leasing, the big-ticket arm of Lloyds TSB
Group.
After leaving PwC, for a number of years he
also worked as head of finance with The Times newspaper. As he
recalls, he was recruited by Rupert Murdoch himself. He got to know
some of the newspaper’s editors, including Andrew Neil and the
famous Harold Evans, who wrote Good Times, Bad Times, after
resigning over a disagreement with Murdoch relating to editorial
independence.
Indeed, Smith is one of the principal
characters in the book.
He recounts: “I regularly had coffee with
Evans. I used to tell him that The Times would be a better
newspaper if he put it into two sections, and put a business
section separately.”
Apparently, following Smith’s suggestion,
Evans really made the paper into two sections, and in his book he
attributes this to Smith, describing him as someone who spent more
time telling him how to run his editorial section than giving him
financial numbers.
Smith got back into leasing again in 1990,
when he worked for Sanwa Bank, which set up a vendor leasing
business in London.The company was sold to Fleet National Bank in
1999 and then, in 2004, to BoA.
“I have been there basically for 19 years,”
says Smith, who in his most recent role was CFO for the EMEA region
of BofA vendor leasing.
According to BofA’s head John Bennett, Smith
has significantly contributed to the industry.
He said: “Godfrey was a key figure in
expanding our activities in Europe to cover 17 countries. He became
an expert in cross-border, legal and tax structures for vendor
transactions.”
In addition to that, as Bennett highlights,
Smith did a lot of work with the Finance & Leasing Association
in submitting proposals and working with different parties in
relation to changes in corporation tax for lessors, and on
accounting and reporting.
Simon Kirk, finance director at Five Arrows
Leasing Group, who attended many of these meetings and who has
known Smith for a long period of time, said: “The one thing I can
say about Godfrey is that he is always charming, he always had that
sort of sunny disposition to talk to, he always emphasises the
positive.”
According to Jonathan Vines of KPMG, Smith
“has consistently performed at a high level in various
organisations and demonstrates true UK and overseas asset finance
expertise”.
Praised by many of his leasing peers, Smith
can therefore be considered one of the real veterans in this
industry.
Asked why he’s been in leasing for so long, he
says: “Because I have enjoyed the people, and the products are
interesting.”
