Experience

Monty Houdeshell, Principal at Houdeshell Advisors which he formed in 2009, has more than 20 years of experience as a Chief Financial and Chief Administrative officer in four Southern California companies advising Boards, CEOs senior managers and shareholders on the creation of enterprise value.

Mr. Houdeshell has completed several turnarounds, restructurings and business transformations. He has completed more than 70 acquisitions and divestitures, more than 10 public offerings and numerous credit facilities. In all cases his focus has been on rewarding the shareholders by increasing the intrinsic value of the enterprise.

He is a hands-on, results-oriented, operational, and strategic B2B executive with a proven record of leadership and accomplishment of increased shareholder value and profitable growth.

Board Experience

Mr. Houdeshell currently serves as the non-executive Chairman of the Board at the Nelson Family of Companies, a privately owned group of companies providing a wide variety of direct placement and contract staffing services as well as software and services designed to organize the workforce management process. Prior to his current role he served for several years as the Chairman of the Audit Committee.

He has also served on the Board of Sperry Van Ness International, one of the world's largest commercial real estate broker and franchisors.

Work Experience

Prior to Houdeshell Advisors Mr. Houdeshell was CFO at Autobytel, Inc. ( NASDAQ:ABTL), an internet automotive research and marketing services provider with sales of $100 million. He served from 2006 to 2009 and was responsible for finance and accounting, business process improvement, business intelligence, and investor relations. ABTL was a distressed company consuming over $8 million in cash quarterly when Mr. Houdeshell joined the firm. Consequently his focus was on process improvement and cost reductions:

• Initiated cost reductions totaling more than $28 million annually
• Implemented   financial reporting , and ad ops management systems
• Reduced finance and accounting staff and costs by 67%
• Reduced IT staff and costs by 40%
• Established Internal Audit and Business Process Improvement functions
• Established management reporting, budgeting, forecasting, and planning disciplines

 

 As CFO and CAO from 2002 to 2006 at Remedy Temp, Inc. (NASDAQ:REMX), a $600 million sales provider of temporary staffing services with 240 offices nationwide, he was responsible for human resources, legal affairs, information technology, accounting, treasury, internal audit, risk management, facilities, purchasing, and investor relations. Remedy was also a turnaround which required a significant shift in strategy, initiation of new revenue sources, cost reductions, and margin improvements:

 

• Managed turnaround resulting in annual growth in market value of 25%.
• Executed a strategic plan that increased profit margins from -6 % to +2% of sales.
• Restructured workers’ comp program resulting in $16 million savings annually.
• Reduced corporate administrative costs annually by $5 million.
• Completed Sarbanes-Oxley 404 implementation with clean audit opinion.
• Developed a plan for the outsourcing of all IT systems and infrastructure.
• Managed successful completion of several major litigation matters.
• Re-negotiated bank lines and completed shelf registration.
• Implemented overhaul of financial reporting and installed new financial systems.

 

For twelve years prior Mr. Houdeshell was CFO and CAO at the Furon Company, (NYSE:FCY), an $800 million sales global, multi-plant manufacturer of medical devices and supplies and high-performance polymer components. He was responsible for strategic planning, business development (11 acquisitions and 16 divestitures), all financial areas, investor relations, information systems, human resources, and legal. While not a turnaround, Furon was a business transformation:

 

• Led strategic planning process, realizing 12 year compound annual growth in market value of 23%, earnings of 16%, sales of 13%, and doubling return on assets and return on equity.
• Initiated a restructuring that increased profitability by 25%.
• Initiated a world-class manufacturing program, improving margins by 3 percentage points.
• Implemented Economic Value Added (EVA) as the measure of performance and compensation.
• Restructured, decentralized and upgraded the finance team, reducing headcount 23%.
• Redirected the tax function from compliance to planning, reducing tax rate from 51% to 27.5%.
• Instituted a proactive investor relations program, more than doubling institutional ownership.
• Executed a $125 mm public offering, redemption of debentures, and $250 mm line of credit.
• Created systems to provide real-time sales and profit by market, customer, region, or product.

 

 

Mr. Houdeshell obtained his first CFO and CAO experience at Oak Industries, Inc. (NYSE: OAK) a $1.8 billion sales, global, multi-plant producer of electronic components, controls, and materials; communications and cable television equipment. Oak was an extremely troubled company at the time he joined the company and took a leadership position. He planned and directed a major turnaround effort:

• Restructured capital through four public offerings, reducing annual debt service by $25 million.
• Negotiated the sale of a major division, raising $153 million in cash.
• Increased net worth from negative $65 million to positive $65 million through low-cost plants, product re-designs, new products, purge of products, and inventory reductions.
• Eliminated losses at satellite communications subsidiary by assuming direct responsibility.
• Saved in excess of $10 million annually by restructuring the cable converter business.
• Reduced administrative costs $30 million annually by restructuring corporate staff.
• Established financial reporting that received commendation by the SEC
• Developed corporate-wide budgeting, forecasting and management reporting systems.

Mr. Houdeshell began his career at Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp. (NYSE:TCF), a $2.8 billion sales entertainment conglomerate with interests in film, television, music, theatres, broadcasting, resorts, film processing, and theme parks. He held a number of staff and senior financial positions addressing acquisitions, divestitures, turnarounds, and fundamental changes in strategy.

 

                                                                                                     * All $Sales figures are inflation adjusted.