One of John Garfield’s favourite pastimes is poker, but it would take a brave individual to indulge him in a game as he has rarely gambled and lost in his career.
His calm exterior belies a huge amount of energy and passion – qualities that he has channelled into running successful, profitable businesses, and ones that have helped him to play an active role in the financial services industry across more than three decades.
Charcol first opened its doors in 1974 as John Charcol – the name reflecting a three-way partnership between Garfield, Charles Wishart and Colin Studd – and was sold to Bradford & Bingley in 2000, before returning into Garfield’s hands at the beginning of December last year.
While Charcol is a household name, the man behind the organisation is an intensely private individual who adores spending time with his family and travelling, and shuns much of the industry limelight.
And at 55, many individuals would be directing their eye towards retirement, but Garfield has decided to return to the fold.
He insists he has only returned because he enjoys the job. “You need to enjoy what you do,” he says. But he accepts you have to be ruthless at times, adding: “We only want people here that are good at what they do, and you have got to want to be in the financial services industry to be any good at it.”
In the four months that Garfield has been back at the helm, there have been a number of changes that have dominated the headlines, most notably the broker’s staff being cut by 50%.
He describes the high percentage of people who have left the company as a “blood bath”, saying: “We had too many people who were doing the job because it was a job, but we need to have a passion everywhere.”
Back to basics
The reduction in staff was part of a deliberate move in getting the company back to basics, which has involved reworking its processes from top to bottom.
Garfield explains: “We are applying a lot of the same approaches as before, although not exactly the same as technology has moved on. We are in the fortunate position that we are not starting off where we did last time in 1974, so hopefully we are going to get things right faster.”
He goes on to say that the industry has changed radically since his first tenure at Charcol and that the public is far better serviced as a result. “The cost of money in relation to previous times is far more favourable towards consumers,” he says.
He claims Charcol once had the best team in the business. “A lot of the people we trained back then have gone out and created great careers for themselves, and good businesses with good business practices. They were a sound group of people and I would have expected no less of them.”
And he adds: “We had the best business techniques before, and I had another 100 that they were not capable of taking at that time, and we will put those into the new business.”
Employment opportunities
Charcol is not currently recruiting, but has announced that it will do so from the middle of May, possibly earlier.
Garfield says: “The first thing we have decided to do is to find the basis of the business again and only then can we start adding to it. A company needs to determine what it wants to do before it can identify the type of people it wants to recruit.
“We will soon have a clear idea of the number of people we need to employ, in what positions, what benchmarks they will want to work to, what rewards we can offer and what advantages we can give them over and above other jobs they might be doing in the industry.”
He is fully aware that people will not want to work at Charcol unless it provides the appropriate earning potential and working culture. But he says: “I am not ready to say that I can give that to new people yet, although I will be ready to start saying that by the middle of May. I would very much hope that we will compete in the marketplace in terms of what we will offer. Our staff are beginning to love what is going on and there is so much change happening.”
Garfield insists that he will not be poaching people from within the industry as he believes such a practice is unethical. He says: “We will be training people up as this is one of the best ways to recruit staff, in any industry. But at the same time, we want to build the business fast and so we will need to take on experience brokers and will be recruiting from our industry. But I would never poach someone – that is not the way I do things.
“I intend to recruit, and there is an ethical difference. To recruit is an honest appeal to people in the industry, via the press, that we are looking to take on people and if they would like to talk to us our doors are open. But I will not be tapping Charlie Brown on the shoulder, who is working for another company, and asking him whether he wants to come and work for me.”
All these changes at Charcol will inevitably take time to filter through, but the broker insists it will be able to compete on price and new products whatever is happening elsewhere.
He says: “What we have is a very different structure to what we had, particularly in terms of our distribution channels, and they are still going through their validation processes. I do not think there is a broker around with the type of structure that we will have, not that I have seen. There are brokers with parts of the structure, but not the totality of the structure that we will have by the middle of May. It is getting quite exciting. It has to be fun or there is no point in doing it.”
Concerning the outlook for the UK property market, Garfield says: “All anyone can do is guess. Some people think the property market is going to go up and some people think it is going to go down. This should not make that much difference. I am much more concerned about the size of the market. Volumes are going to be a little lighter than the last couple of years. I am not sure that this will continue for long as interest rates are generally benign, incomes are rising, and I do not see a crash coming.”
Garfield currently lives in Paris and commutes to London by train, catching the 5am train on Tuesday and returning late Thursday evening. As such, his working life is concentrated into a shorter-than-normal period of time, but Garfield maintains that even at 55, he has the energy to continue for several years to come.
“Everyone used to talk about five-year planning, but that has gone out of the window. Two-and-half-year planning is about as much as anyone can now do. I see myself lasting the next cycle, but after that, it depends on my colleagues and circumstances. I am enjoying it at the moment, and I certainly do not have an intention not to be around – as opposed to having an intention to how long I am going to be around.”
He adds: “I do not live in London, but I consider it as my home. It is a great city and as much as it is nice to travel, I still miss my friends and my home.”
Garfield has decided to take a month off work to spend some time travelling with his family, and plans on visiting Mauritius, Orlando, Las Vegas and Bermuda.
And with the renewed energy that such a break can bring, the industry will be waiting to see what additional changes Garfield will make to Charcol on his return.
COMPANY CREDENTIALS CHARCOL
John Charcol was established in 1974. The name derives from an amalgamation of the names of its three original founders, who were John Garfield, Charles Wishart and Colin Studd. In 1984, it was purchased by Abaco, and in 1986, Abaco was bought out by British and Commonwealth Group. In 1989, there was a management buyout, and in 1998, the US adventure capitalists Warburg Pincus purchased a 71% stake in John Charcol. The company looked to the internet in 1999, when Charcolonline was established. In 2000, John Charcol was purchased outright by Bradford & Bingley and became part of the Bradford & Bingley Group. In the same year, John Charcol was rebranded as Charcol. Last year, Charcol was sold by Bradford & Bingley.
