Tag Archive for: treasury

Large platforms mainly invest in stones: social value decreases

31-08-2020 | Lex van Teeffelen | treasuryXL

Due to the corona crisis, loan volume shrank by 37% for corporate loans with crowdfunding platforms. Unique, because since the foundation of crowdfunding platforms there has only been growth. The first half of 2020 was so bad that a number of platforms made use of the NOW scheme. Yet there is also good news. A number of platforms are growing rapidly. Five platforms have also been admitted to the SME Corona Guarantee Scheme. What are the main developments? And where are the largest platforms?

(Blog in Dutch)

Het goede nieuws

Het gaat een aantal platforms voor de wind. NLInvesteert neemt de koppositie over als marktleider in het eerste halfjaar 2020. Onderscheidend door de sterke risicobeoordeling en de lage default. Maar ook SameninGeld voor particulier vastgoedfinanciering en LenderSpender voor consumentenleningen groeien door.

Eindelijk toegang tot overheidsgaranties

Na veel lobbywerk in Den Haag is de kogel door de kerk. Ook crowdfundingplatforms kunnen overbruggingskredieten met staatsgaranties aanbieden. Het gaat om BMKB-Corona regeling tot 1,5 miljoen euro met een aflosvrije periode tot 18 maanden en een maximale looptijd van 4 jaar. Een aantal platforms heeft concessies moeten doen. Naast de crowd dienen ook professionele/grote investeerders mee te doen. De website van het RVO is wat traag met alle partijen te vermelden, maar de volgende crowdfundingplatforms zijn geaccrediteerd: Geldvoorelkaar, VoordeGroei, OneplanetCrowd, Coöperatie NLInvesteert en October. Vreemd genoeg krijgen ook de flitskredietverstrekkers Swishfund en Yeaz toegang tot de staatsgarantie. Die trekken ondernemers qua kosten en rente het vel over de neus. En dat met staatsgarantie!

NOW-aanvragen

Het Europees opererende platform October van Franse origine, is de grootste aanvrager van de platforms in de eerste NOW-ronde met 151K. Maar ook marktleider 2019 Geldvoorelkaar voelde de pijn en ontving 136K. De derde grootste aanvrager was DuurzaamInvesteren (Crowdinvesting BV) met een toegekend bedrag van 83K. Deze partij heeft onder meer de Triodos Bank als aandeelhouder. Flitskredietverstrekker Swishfund spant echter de kroon met 313K.

Het is natuurlijk toegestaan, maar het staat niet chic. Deze platforms behoren bepaald niet tot de kleintjes. Dat kleinere non-profit platforms als VoordeKunst en Kentau de NOW aanvragen, is meer vanzelfsprekend.

DuurzaamInvesteren krijgt navolging

Bij DuurzaamInvesteren gaat het al een tijd niet goed. Niet alleen scoort dit platform hoog op het aantal ondeugdelijkheden, ook blijft het volume achter bij de concurrenten sinds begin 2019. Een doorn in het oog is dat DuurzaamInvesteren proposities van de eigen aandeelhouders YardEnergie en Greenchoice plaatst. Hoe kan het platform daarbij objectiviteit garanderen? Helaas volgt aandeelhouder Lambert Kassing van KapitaalopMaat dit slechte voorbeeld op met deze propositie. Ook KapitaalopMaat kent weinig transacties met daarbij ook een hoge (loss giving) default. De aandeelhouder is tevens actief voor de Stichting Zekerheden KapitaalopMaat. Wederom ongewenste verstrengeling van belangen. Belanghebbenden kunnen melding doen bij de AFM.

Vastgoedtransacties zonder heldere risicobeoordeling

Waar de platforms voorheen vooral werkkapitaal verschaften, groeit nu de objectfinanciering – meer specifiek de vastgoedfinanciering – snel. Bijgaand ziet u een indicatief overzicht van de Onroerend Goed (OG) proposities van de drie grootste platforms (2020 YTD) op 18 augustus 2020 om 00.00 uur.

Tweederde of meer van de verstrekte leningen (in volume) is nu vastgoedfinanciering. Hoewel Geldvoorelkaar de meeste proposities post (66%), wordt zij in volume voorbijgestreefd door Collin Crowdfund en NLInvesteert. Dat investeerders wat te kiezen hebben blijkt uit de ranges in Loan To Value (LTV) en de geboden rentes. Op het eerste gezicht lijkt NLInvesteert het betere risico/rendement aan te bieden. Let wel, het aantal waarnemingen is beperkt. De proposities binnen en tussen de platforms wijken sterk van elkaar af. In een enkel geval wordt niet eens onderpand gevestigd, soms een tweede hypotheek (= lastig uitwinbaar), veelal een eerste hypotheek met (te) hoge LTV.

Er ontbreken veel indicatoren om OG proposties op waarde te kunnen schatten: de beoordeling van de locatie, de courantheid en verhandelbaarheid van het pand, de staat van onderhoud (binnen- en buitenkant), de kosten van achterstallig onderhoud of bouwkundige gebreken. Taxatierapporten worden niet bijgevoegd.

Investeren in vastgoed met eerste hypotheek is niet risicoloos. In een crisis komen meer bedrijfspanden leeg te staan. Daarmee daalt de waarde. Geen huurder, betekent sowieso een zeer lage waarde. Excecutieverkoop levert een fractie van de getaxeerde waarde op. Wachten op de juiste koper meer, maar gaat gepaard met doorlopende kosten. Bij particuliere woningen is dat risico minder groot. Maar in ontvolkte en sterk vergrijzende regio’s zeker aanwezig. Meer dan 65% LTV bij courante bedrijfspanden en 80% LTV bij particulier vastgoed voor investeringsdoeleinden is onverstandig. Vooral Geldvoorelkaar en Collin Crowdfund overschrijden die grenzen regelmatig. Geen van de drie platforms hanteert overigens expliciete pricingscriteria voor vastgoedproposities. Andere beoordelingscriteria zijn nodig.

Investeren in de reële economie of meedeinen met speculanten?

Naarmate er meer gehandeld wordt in particulier onroerend goed, zullen de platfoms meebewegen. Daar waar nieuwe panden en projecten worden gerealiseerd via aan-, ombouw en nieuwbouw, zie ik toegevoegde waarde. Daar waar ondernemers hun kosten gelijk kunnen houden met verwerving van het bedrijfspand niet. Investeren in stenen is – zeker nu – slecht voor de liquiditeit van een onderneming. Cash is King in crisistijd.

Maar wat is de toevoegde waarde van opkoop van particuliere panden? Die worden gesplitst of voor drie tot vijf personen ingericht. Huurprijzen worden flink verhoogd, stedelijke omgevingen worden onbetaalbaar voor starters en mensen met lage en midden inkomens. In plaats van honderden euro’s, stijgen de huren naar duizenden euro’s. Niet alleen het snel groeiende platform SameninGeld specialiseert zich hierin. Ook de grote platforms doen mee.

Economen in 17e eeuw noemden grond- en huizenbezitters de steriele klasse, omdat zij niet herinvesteren in directe economie en productiviteit. Adam Smith – schrijver van The Wealth of Nations – noemt hen zelfs parasieten, omdat zij “love to reap, where they never sowed”. Ook Nobelprijs winnaar Joseph Stiglitz, waarschuwt voor de ontwrichtende werking van de toenemende ongelijkheid en de accumulatie van kapitaal en bezit. En u kent vast de econoom Thomas Pikkety, die pleit voor het zwaar belasten van bezittingen en het licht belasten van arbeid?

Kleur bekennen

Met het verstrekken van overbruggingskredieten BMKB-C kunnen platforms hun rol herpakken. Banken laten steken vallen en beperken zich graag tot financieringen van 1 miljoen euro en meer.

Ik ben benieuwd waar de grotere crowdfundplatforms nu voor staan. Blijft het bij het oppikken van de restjes die de banken achterlaten? Zoals het er nu naar uitziet, lijken de grootste platforms veel op elkaar. Tijd voor fusies? Er mag wel wat meer kleur in het landschap komen*. Waar zit de toegevoegde waarde? Wat is hun Why en aan welke maatschappelijke doelstellingen dragen deze grotere platforms meetbaar bij?

 

Lex van Teeffelen

Professor Entrepreneurial Finance and Firm Acquisition

Cash is The Whole Royal Family!

26-08-2020 | Olivier Werlingshoff | treasuryXL

Can the treasurer be the linking pin between different departments within organizations?
For cash related topics he or she has to be the linking pin to understand the cash flows within the company and to be in control. When you understand how all departments work and how the financial information is produced by controllers, you can help them and give advice on how to lower trapped cash.

Cashflow

To me the cash flow forecast is the basic of all treasury related items. When setting up the forecast (direct/indirect), it gives you the possibility to dive deep in the risk of FX and take actions to lower them or even better, to develop a guideline on how to handle FX risks in the future. The same can be done for IR risk, debtor risk and all other cash flow related risks. When making the cash flow forecast, you can literally make visual what the effect of a change in payment behavior of your customers or a change in FX rates will be.

The Treasurer’s task

The treasurer has to be in constant contact with all different departments to receive the most actual information. As treasurer, you also have to challenge the different departments on cash related topics. The reason for this is that most of the colleagues are not always cash focused. You have to set up an internal marketing plan to reach all necessary stakeholders (organize meetings, develop reports, mailings, organize events where colleagues can come with cash optimization related idea’s etc…).

Supply chain departments are focusing on delivering on time for production or sales. It is very interesting to focus on the ins and outs of world of supply chain. All goods can be categorized based on the time they will stay in the warehouse as well as the time needed to replace them and the cost of a reorder. When you combine all variables, an optimum can be reach. The information that supply chain and purchasing department can provide you is the order book. This can help you to extent the reliable period of the direct cash flow forecast.


By sitting close to the financial department or the shared service center you can have a better understanding of the payment behavior of clients but also the payment behavior of the company. Is there enough focus on the debtor collection process and is the sales department also aware of the payment behavior of their customers? Are the invoices send on time? Do they use direct debits or are balances on bank accounts swept daily to a master account?


Financial control is a department which is also related to the cash flow forecast. Most of the time they will make budgets of balance sheets and P&L and will make (monthly/ quarterly/yearly) estimations of the working capital parts such as inventory, accounts payables and receivables. By doing so they will be able to predict an indirect cash flow forecast. Are their presumptions for the working capital parts correct? Are they based on the budget sales, or based on the previous years? Most of the time the presumptions explain the difference between the direct and indirect forecast and difficult to track down.

Conclusion

Financing activities such as project financing, supply chain and trade finance can be set up based on a reliable forecast. By increasing the cash awareness in different departments, you will be able to release trapped cash, lower costs and have better control of all cash related items.

Olivier Werlingshoff

Olivier is an operational treasury manager who likes to connect and get in touch with different departments. By doing so he gets the treasury department and the awareness of cash in the picture, gets grip on the cash flow and releases trapped cash as well as lowers costs.
He is available for a permanent/interim position and you can reach him on

+ 31683629427

[email protected].


Does your business need support in Treasury or a Treasury QuickScan?

We have treasurers available, go to Rent a Treasurer for all information.

Senior Analist Financieringen & Treasury (m/v, only Dutch speakers)

25-09-2020 | Treasurer Search | treasuryXL

Onze Partner Treasurer Search zoekt een Senior Analist Financieringen & Treasury voor een onderneming die impact heeft op het dagelijks leven van alle Nederlanders en een aantal niet-Nederlanders. Het betreft een nieuwe positie in een corporate treasury afdeling waar regelmatig zeer grote, internationale en diverse financieringen worden gestructureerd. We zoeken een analyst die vanaf het begin verantwoordelijkheid krijgt (en neemt) in bijvoorbeeld analyses, investor relations, leningdocumentatie en credit ratings. Het liefst met de potentie deal captain te worden. Counterparty risk analyse en management is een taak die aan deze analyst wordt toevertrouwd. Het team is niet groot, het zal zeker voorkomen dat ook moet worden ingesprongen in cash management.

Ideale Senior Analist Financieringen & Treasury

De ideale kandidaat voor deze positie heeft een relevante, afgeronde academische opleiding. Recht, economie of bedrijfskunde zouden bijvoorbeeld passend zijn. Hij hoeft nog niet alle expertise te hebben en werkte bij een bank aan de credit kant, als consultant of in een corporate treasury afdeling. Aantoonbare ervaring met kapitaalmarkten, financieringen, documentatie en reporting & analyse zijn zeer gewenst. Als persoon is de analyst nieuwsgierig, communicatief en zij zal zich zeker nog verder ontwikkelen. Schriftelijk en mondeling communiceren in Nederlands & Engels is een vanzelfsprekendheid. In Duits zou een grote plus zijn.


Onze Opdrachtgever

Onze opdrachtgever heeft impact op het dagelijks leven van alle Nederlanders en een aantal niet-Nederlanders. Haar activiteiten zorgen voor het oplossen van grote maatschappelijke issues die nu prominent in het nieuws zijn. In het bereiken van de ondernemingsdoelstelling is de corporate treasury afdeling essentieel en het treasury team is een innovatieve en bekende partij in de internationale kapitaalmarkten. Het team is informeel en inhoudelijk gedreven. De onderneming investeert actief in haar personeel en zorgt bewust voor een goede work-life balans.

Arbeidsvoorwaarden en Proces

Het verwachte basisinkomen voor deze positie is €70K met een ruime bandbreedte voor jonge talenten en ervaren kandidaten die iets extra’s kunnen brengen. De secundaire voorwaarden zijn zonder meer goed en ontwikkeling van personeel krijgt veel aandacht. Voor passende kandidaten die interesse hebben, is er een uitgebreide functiebeschrijving beschikbaar.

 

Contactpersoon

Pieter de Kiewit

T: (0850) 866 798
M: (06) 1111 9783
E: [email protected]





Locatie

Midden Nederland



APPLY HERE

 

 

Webinar recording: The Future of Cash Flow

| 11-08-2020 | Cashforce

Cash forecasting has been essential to treasurers over recent months both with respect to systems/behaviour/data.

In this webinar we discuss the future of cash flow, together with Caroline Stockmann (ACT), Ginny Wu (Walker Shop Footwear), Gerard Tuinenburg (Unilever), James Adams (Chalhoub) and Nicolas Christiaen (Cashforce).

Watch recording:

 

Financing and FX; The fundamental concepts

10-08-2020| Niki van Zanten

Each field of expertise has some fundamental concepts that the decision makers tie to as general rules of thumb. For example, a purist chef might stick to a maximum of 5 ingredients on each plate, a winemaker might say only grapes and nothing else, and another winemaker might say any trick goes as long as it feels the wine.

The treasury purist might say the fundamental concept that should be applied and/or benchmarked is to get as close to a zero sum game as possible. I personally tend to agree with this concept, taking into account it’s not a pure mathematical equation. A zero sum game in Treasury would mean looking beyond one pillar of treasury (I would even recommend to look beyond the treasury scope once in a while and why not, even look beyond scope of just your company), and thereby combining the outcomes of a solution across multiple pillars and see if they balance out.

Today we will take a stab out doing that for FX and Financing. Below topics give some insights in when to apply and what to look at for:

  • External Financing in Foreign Currency
  • Internal Financing in Foreign Currency
  • FX swaps
  • Conclusion

External Financing in Foreign Currency

Interest rates not only fluctuate but also have different (base) interest rates per currency/country. In general, the all in interest for financing consist of a base rate for a certain tenor and the bank spread based on perception of customers credit. At first glance it might seem interesting to look at financing in a low interest rate currency.

A few years ago many home owners in Poland used EUR mortgages to fund their homes reducing interest cost by a few percent. This of course is not a saving, even though the interest cost were lower, in return they received a FX risk on EURPLN. In case a forward (sell PLN buy EUR) would be used to eliminate the FX risk it would not only wipe out the interest benefit but also bring additional burden in terms of administration, settlements and understanding the complexity of the structure. One of the complexities of the forward is even a credit component, so the point here is, in order to really see the zero sum game picture and its leakage (spreads, out of pocket expenses etc) things can get tricky.

Internal Financing

In most scenarios internal financing is a pass through and in principle it works the same as external with a back to back leg (albeit in a netting scenario). It does open a new array of choices. The more basic choices to put the (internal) FX risk, which tenors to use, accounting classification and perhaps even do everything back to back with a bank or take some risk on the books. In terms of currency and where to put the FX risk, the most straight forward option is to use the currency is which the predominant cash flows occur. You can also choose to centralise all your FX exposure at HQ but this could cause the accounting books to look different then the economics. In any case, with any back to back transaction in general the golden balance sheet rule should apply, ie duration and conditions internal need to match external, unless you choose to have risk on your books.

FX Swaps

FX swaps (buy and sell currency for different value dates) are commonly referred as FX instruments, but in my view they are pure financing instruments. They can be used to hedge the FX on a loan or to adjust timing of cash flow or related hedges which are both financing related issues. When a swap is executed to spot reference on both legs is equal and therefore the pricing is pure interest based. Swaps can be a great way to fine-tune interest rates as forward prices tend to be closer to interbank then to manage through typical cash management products like loans and deposits. The trade-off can come in the form of a little extra work and basic knowledge is needed, but I would argue the same understanding is required when using a bank solution which has swap incorporated such as cross currency pools.

Conclusion

The FX market at first sight provides an excellent way to obtain close to interbank interest rates. Use it wisely and make sure you have a deep understanding of the situation. There are also many good reasons to choose a simple “plug and play” solution when looking at financing elements. As always, if you care about your funding and cash flow the understanding required for keeping it simple is no different than the understanding required for an outsourced (bank provided) solution. So either way, don’t do what you don’t completely understand. A chat with an expert and/or asking the right questions to your banking partners (don’t be shy to ask for the motives of the solution that is offered) will get you on the right path.

I am curious about your thoughts. Please comment…

 

Niki van Zanten

FX specialist

 

Recap of the first ‘Meet the Expert’ interview series and full overview

| 04-08-2020 | by Kendra Keydeniers |

A couple of months ago, we started the ‘Meet the Expert’ interview series with experts from the treasuryXL community with different treasury expertise.

Treasury needs to deal with an increasing availability of alternative financial products, intensifying risk management requirements, regulatory and compliance constraints.

What do our experts think about this rapidly growing movements within the treasury world? What developments do they expect in the future? What opportunities do they see?

We interviewed 10 experts over the last 10 weeks and asked them about their treasury career, experiences, the future of treasury and of course how COVID19 impact treasury from their perspective.

Did you miss an interview? No worries, here is a full overview of the ‘Meet the Expert’ series:

 

 

 

Bertus van de Kamp

Senior Business Consultant & Cash Management Specialist

read interview

 

 

 

 

 

Wim Kok

International Business Consultant & Trade Finance Specialist

read interview

 

 

 

 

 

Aastha Tomar

FX & Derivatives | Debt Capital Markets | MBA Finance | Electrical Engineer | Sustainability

read interview

 

 

 

 

 

Michael Ringeling

Corporate Treasury, Corporate Control and Banking

read interview

 

 

 

 

 

Olivier Werlingshoff

Cash- and Treasury management

read interview

 

 

 

 

 

Ger van Rosmalen

Trade Finance Specialist

read interview

 

 

 

 

 

Francois De Witte

Owner at FDW Consult | Sr. Project Manager at Gaming1 | CFO at Safetrade Holding

read interview

 

 

 

 

 

Arnoud Doornbos

Interim Treasury & Finance | Consultant | FX & Interest Derivatives | Treasury Outsourcing| Risk | Fintech | TMS

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vinzenco Masile

Treasury Expert/Credit Risk Manager

read interview

 

 

 

 

 

Arnaud Béasse

Debt Management Specialist

read interview

 

 


A big thank you to everyone that worked with me on this series, to everyone that selflessly shared their knowledge and experience with all of us! You guys rock.

If you’ve enjoyed our series so far, don’t worry, this is just the beginning! We are looking into more perspectives to share with you later this year when we will start the second ‘Meet the Expert’ interview series.

Take care and thanks for reading,

Kendra Keydeniers
Community & Partner Manager at treasuryXL

Accounting for FX; the Do’s and Don’ts

08-07-2020 | Niki van Zanten

Let’s start by mentioning a phrase that I hear regularly and, to be honest, also use myself: ‘I am not an accountant, but…..’.
The urge to mention this phrase (usually targeted to an accountant while having an ‘I know it better’ attitude), can perhaps be traced back to the following reasons:

  • Discrepancies between accounting and real economics;
  • The fact that some (from my perspective, way too many) companies are run by accountants and numbers;
  • Historically absurd requirements in terms of hedge accounting*.IFRS on paper brought some relief but the old FAS and IAS standards were over the top accounting driven without a mere grasp of the real world.

The first point could already result into great discussions. As companies are expected to adhere to certain accounting standards, these standards represent the objective part of these discussions. This results in real economics claiming an underdog position.
If companies have to choose between compliance on one hand and doing what works best economically on the other hand, the way to find the right balance is by training accountants about real economics. Many individuals working in treasury have an accounting background, which could be beneficial if that individual takes the economic approach and uses accounting knowledge convince business partners.

Let’s jump into some basic examples where accounting doesn’t reflect economic reality:

  1. IC (inter company) bookings where the transaction is not reported in the same currency at both ends

Entity A (EUR Functional) has a receivable of 1 Mio EUR and entity B (USD Functional) has a payable of 1.1 Mio USD. The Historic rate was 1.10 and cash flow occurred in USD. Entity A decided to book in EUR to avoid any FX reporting. The consequence is that there is indeed no FX exposure visible. However upon settlements all FX results suddenly appear.What a nasty surprise!

  1. Re-measurements not done at correct rates

The best indication for FX effects in your books is obtained when the applied rates are close to the market rates. As you know there are many different sources for markets rates.  The awareness of this fact is not visible in accounting.

  1. Forward points not segregated

If you do not segregate forward points in PL, you can have FX results when the currency in question does not move. That just sounds very strange to me and this also touches upon a bigger issue, namely the allocation of result on PL. In the case your FX does not land in a segregated PL line, or worse non-FX related results end in your FX PL,
this usually does not change the total PL. However this makes it extremely difficult to control FX results, as you need good exposure information as well solid controls in terms of realized results. Segregation of realized and unrealized FX is also a very helpful tool for the Risk manager.

Are companies run by accountants?

That question should be discussed over a beer or glass of wine. Right now, I will limit myself to some pointers on how to identify whether a case could be identified as an accounting issue or economics issue. It is actually very simple and should be done by treasurers and financial controllers, before any discussion occurs on what the actual problem is.

By comparing the accounting steps for each of the proposed solutions with the trades, you can identify where market risk arises and where accounting risk. The one can see that thes are not always the same. Furthermore, it might also be a good time to call for a specialist, if the right level of comfort is not met. This way of working also fits well with the absurd requirements of hedge accounting.

Regarding this topic, ask yourself whether you really need to apply hedge accounting. From my experiences, in most cases hedge accounting is applied only for one reason; to reduce the PL volatility in between hedging and the moment of cash flow for forecasted transactions. (especially true for listed companies).Taking an economic perspective, there is no benefit in hedge accounting at such a significant cost in terms of audits and administration . Hence, determine how high the cliff is, before you dive down into hedge accounting procedures.

Conclusion

In a perfect world with only blue skies and where work consists of having margaritas on the beach, there are no accounting requirements (and probably also no FX to manage). In our world, the same feeling can be obtained by making sure that the accounting for FX reflects economic reality as much as possible. Thisby applying the accounting standards as a framework. Furthermore  take into account what level of known discrepancies between the economic and accounting reality you are comfortable with.

*Please note hedge accounting and accounting for FX are not the same. By accounting for FX I mean the accounting entries done by non-local or group currency items. These can be invoices in different currencies or intercompany bookings. Hedge accounting is only linked to deferring derivative MTM on the balance sheet as opposed to PL immediately.

I am curious about your thoughts. Please comment…

 

Niki van Zanten

FX specialist

 

International Treasury Management and Corporate Finance course in September 2020

06-07-2020 | by Kendra Keydeniers | Francois De Witte | ATEL

The treasurer is the custodian of the company’s daily liquidity. He manages, anticipates and secures cash flows by ensuring that financial needs are covered.

This cursus will give the ability to assist directly and practically the treasurer of large corporates or to take over the treasury responsibilities in a SME.

The various modules will allow acquiring an in-depth knowledge of the various areas of the “Corporate Treasure” profession.

Registration

This course will start late September 2020. It includes 13 training modules and 5 intermediary exams. It is necessary to complete this form before your official registration. Registration will be closed early September 2020.

Objectives

At the end of this programme, the participant will able to:

  • assist directly and practically the treasurer of large corporates
  • take over treasury responsibilities in a SME.

The various modules will allow to acquire an in-depth knowledge of the various areas of the “Corporate Treasurer” profession.

Programme

Module 0: Introduction to Treasury Management
Speaker: Benjamin Defays / Treasury Manager

  • Corporate Treasurer’s responsibilities
  • Cash management (bank account opening, closing, KYC, Cash pooling, Payments and bank connectivity)
  • Liquidity management (importance of working capital management,
  • Risk management (foreign exchange, fraud, credit risk)
  • Trade finance (general context, intro to bank guarantees and letters of credit)

Module 1: Financial Maths (Focus on treasury & corporate finance)
Speaker: Hugues Pirotte / Professor of Finance at Solvay Brussels School

  • Focus on treasury & corporate finance
  • Time Value of Money
  • Vocabulary
  • Compounding intervals
  • Discount and annuity factors

Module 2: Advanced Excel workshop for treasurers (Dedicated to treasury)
Speaker: Hugues Pirotte / Professor of Finance at Solvay Brussels School

Module 3: Corporate Finance
Speaker: Mikael Pereira / Associate, Finance

  • Valuations
    • M&A’s
    • Portfolios
  • Corporate Financing
  • Corporate Investments

Module 4: Cash Management (domestic and international)
Speaker François De Witte / Consultant

  • Payments (Process, Tools)
  • Liquidity Management
  • Cash-Flow Forecasting
  • In-House Banking
  • Banking Relationship

Module 5: Trade Finance
Speaker: Benjamin Defays / Treasury Manager

  • General contact, cultural aspects
  • Why trade finance in treasury
  • Bank Guarantees, Burgschafts, Surety Bonds, Letters of Credit, Cash against Documents
  • Alterative security instruments
  • Disruptive technologies

Module 6: Credit Control
Speaker: Anca Vasiliu / Counterparty Risk Manager

  • Concepts & Practices/Types of Credit Risks
  • Understanding Financial Statements and Ratios
  • Credit Scoring/Ratings – S&P, Bloomberg models
  • Collecting overdue receivables – setting priorities
  • Strategies dealing with overdue invoices
  • Debt collection services development

Module 7: Pension / Insurance 

  • General introduction on insurances and pensions
  • Typology of insurances
  • Risk management via insurances
  • Saving via insurances

Module 8: Compliance

  • KYC, GDPR, EMIR, Bale III
  • International sanctions and their impact on transactions & overall business activities
  • Anticorruption (FCPA, UK Bribery Act)
  • EU competition law compliance
  • INCOTERMS
  • Drafting a contract (main considerations)

Module 9: Risk Management
Speaker: Patrick Verspecht / Group Treasurer

  • FX, Interests
  • Counterparties
  • Others (Reputation, etc…)

Module 10: Regulations / Accounting
Speaker: Quentin Bodart / Senior Finance Engineer

  • Emir, Mifid 2, Basle II and III,
  • Dodd Frank, GDPR, Fatca, Section 385…

Module 11: Treasury Accounting
Speaker: Quentin Bodart / Senior Finance Engineer

  • Accounting for Derivatives
  • Hedge Accounting, IFRS9 (all from a treasury side)

Module 12: Technologies
Speaker: Patrick Verspecht / Group Treasurer

  • New Technologies
    • Blockchain, Crypto-currencies, Smart Contracts
  • Treasury Console (Bloomberg, Thomson Reuters)
  • TMS, Fintechs

Module 13: Cyber Fraud

  • Why Cyber fraud needs to be considered as a major risk
  • Identify the consequences of a cyberattack
  • Main fraud schemes
  • How to protect against fraud

Some homework might be proposed for some modules, there will be continuous control in the form of intermediary exams (under the form of QCM) and a final exam will be sanctioned by an attestation delivered by ATEL (The Luxembourg Association of Corporate Treasurers).

There might also be one or two “extra-activity”, such as a visit in a bank trading room or/and a special guest speaker addressing the cursus participants on a specific subject (still to be defined, optional events).

Target Audience

Anyone willing to acquire an in-depth knowledge in corporate treasury and wishing to exercise this knowledge in practice.

Prerequisites

  • Basic background in finance or accounting
  • For the Advanced Excel workshop, a preliminary (good) knowledge in Excel is required

Course Material

The course material can be downloaded free of charge via your portal the day before the start of the course (download the Client Portal User’s Guide here).

Certificate

At the end of the programme, the participants will receive a “Certificate of Attendance” delivered by the House of Training, and an attestation of “Exam Success Pass” delivered by ATEL.

In order to get certified, an 80% rate of attendance and a 60% average score on the examinations are required.

The participants will also receive a one-year free membership to ATEL (www.atel.lu) giving a number of advantages.

Register here

 

 

 

 

 

 

How to develop the ultimate Cash Flow Forecast

| 29-06-2020 | Cashforce

Cash flow forecasting has been called many things in literature. Ranging from the cornerstone of a finance & treasury department to the lifeblood of any organization; it’s fair to say cash forecasting is vital to get an accurate prediction of an organization’s health. Cash forecasting, at its core, is simply identifying all the various in & outflows over a given period in order to analyze and compare those estimations with your actuals. However, in reality, it’s not that simple and a lot of challenges arise in getting an acceptable end result, especially when complexity increases i.e. multiple systems, entities, currencies, etc. Additionally, it doesn’t stop at regularly getting the right information in a timely and efficient matter. Setting sensible assumptions and providing contingencies that offer flexibility in case of unexpected events are a few quintessential things to consider. Improving your forecasting results is more than relying on hard data, but bears fruit in the synergy of art and science. Don’t know where to start, or how to fill in the blanks on further optimizing your current process? Then follow this checklist.

1. Set your goals & requirements – getting to the why – decide:
  • Why are you creating a cash forecast?
  • Do you want to perform an indirect or a direct cash forecast e.g. focus on short term (direct) or longer-term (indirect), or a combination of both
  • What does successful (output look like? (formats, visuals…)
  • If you would like to combine both, choose how the reconciliation would work?
  • What level of granularity do you need?
  • What KPI’s will you be measuring?
  • Who will be the main users of the reports and analyses? (operational vs strategic or both)
  • Who will be contributing to generate the forecast?
  • How will the different contributors and users consume the outputs?
  • What other stakeholders will use the forecast? (e.g. shareholders)
  • Will you recognize forecasting performance? (e.g. remuneration)
  • What are your main cash flow drivers? (how do you define your business model?)
  • What will be the main process-steps?
  • To what extent your staff will be involved in the process? (vs. technology doing the work)
  • In case of exceptions, can the process be sidestepped? If so, what happens then?
  • What controls will be put in place?
  • Who will be in charge of setting up the process? (internal/external)
  • Who will be the main owner of the process?
  • How often does the data need to be updated?
  • How will data quality be ensured for new inputs?
  • What process will be put in place to clean the current data?
  • How will you flag and treat mis-allocated cash flows?
  • What will you use as a reporting currency?
  • How do you treat currency differences?
  • What data sources are most relevant for the forecast and what data you want to take into account:
    • Systems holding your (actual & future) payables and receivables?
    • What formats are your bank statements in? (MT940, BAI, EBICS, CODA…)?
    • Financial planning data. e.g. FP&A / budget / planning tools?
    • Do you have any Treasury & financing data, e.g. interest & FX payments on ongoing deals, residing in, e.g. a Treasury Management System or spreadsheets?
    • Do you need to take any other data into account, e.g. in data warehouses, other specialized systems for leasing, salaries, projects, etc.?
    • What manual input do you require? To what level?
  • How will you get the above data into the forecast? Is it possible to automate these processes?
  • How many forecast horizons do you want to define?
  • What cutoffs would you put in place to split the horizons?

How would you divide the short-mid- & long-term components of the forecast, see (e.g. different per data source below:)

An example of Cash forecasting horizons & their sources

  • What cash flow categories do you want to use?
  • Is there a template you can use as a basis of cash allocation categories, e.g. your current ERP, etc.?
  • How will you treat the unallocated transactions/cash flows?
  • Setting up accuracy feedback loops, e.g. regularly comparing actuals vs forecast & reviewing for improvement
  • Choosing which algorithms / logic – based on business drivers – can be integrated into your model to improve the forecast
  • Decide which contingencies to build in, e.g. revenue/cost/currency/… assumptions

Evaluate how you will you compare with and integrate industry best practices, e.g. staying up to date with the latest technology/peers/…

While creating an accurate cash forecast is not rocket science, getting an effective reporting process in place certainly requires a well thought out and reproduceable plan. Defining the who, the what, the when and the how is both a quantitative and qualitative exercise in building out a forecast. This checklist shows you how to combine the art and science of cash flow forecasting to get it done.

My ethics are better than yours

| 12-06-2020 | treasuryXL | Pieter de Kiewit

In these corona times I work just as hard as before. Regretfully we have fewer assignments (Treasurer Search), but as a team, we prepare for better times. Especially not traveling results in extra time in which I am finally able to structurally read Het Financieele Dagblad (the Dutch Financial Times) and contemplate what is happening and what people have to say. Inspired by a column of Matthijs Bouman I connected a number of articles. Bouman writes about “foute bedrijven” (wrong companies). People condemn Booking.com for asking for government support because they made a huge profit and bought their own shares and still ask for support. So, Bouman states, we should punish their employees. The same way we should punish companies that would not survive anyways, supermarkets that sell wrong products or aviation companies that pollute the air. I like the way he shows us how arbitrary our thinking is.

So what do you think about the following?

  • Flow Traders had an excellent quarter because they thrive on market volatility;
  • FX traders of Citibank, BoA and Goldman recently made huge profits.

Is their business model legit? Or are they the proverbial lawyers that chase the ambulance? At the end of the day I make a living finding staff for companies. Also death, sickness and crisis results in searches for new treasurers and I do not lose sleep over picking up these assignments. Demand and supply, simple as that.

We constantly see how the banking industry struggles with what is good and what is right. A string of scandals over the last years led to new legislation and a lot of work in solving derivatives contracts between banks and their clients (UHK). A new support industry rose and fell. Currently a new one is being built to fight money laundering and other dubious transactions, that will be a KYC industry. Bankers already knew what is wrong and ignored the rules so new control mechanisms had to be build. The one thing I learn from this is that external legislation is not a way to improve morality of bankers. Is the solution hidden in their reward system or their upbringing?

For the opponents of tax evasion, a topic that is in the heart of business ethics, there is good news. The number of entities in The Netherlands that are founded for this purpose is quickly getting smaller. This after extensive public discussion and potential policy changes. I like to think that the powers that be started thinking about the purpose of their companies and these entities, and decided that there are better ways. And not solely money driven, but also because it is the better way. I prefer being hopeful & positive over being cynical.

Listening skills and wanting to compete in the championship of ethics are rarely combined in one person. Being sure and loud regretfully often are. I will make a reminder to follow up on this blog in five years or so.

 

 

Pieter de Kiewit

Owner at Treasurer Search