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The restyled Treasurer Test and new website
| 21-10-2019 | by Kendra Keydeniers |
The Treasurer Test has been tested successfully by four different peer groups with each different treasury knowledge and experience. Finishing this test period with the peer members was a huge milestone for everyone who has been working on the Treasurer Test. By achieving this milestone we could take the next important steps in the Treasurer Test process:
The last months during the ‘summer period’ we have been working on these next steps which resulted in a restyled Treasurer Test. We are very proud to launch our new:
The Changes
Candidate Result Report
We made a huge improvement with the Treasurer Test Result Report. Besides the restyling in the layout of the report, we improved the results display in the Treasury Technical Knowledge part. We received feedback on how the displays with the semi circles were presented with statistical and analytical data. The candidates were sometimes confused in how they actually made the Treasurer Test. Was it good, ok or bad? We have cleared this up and the results display now presents a clear overview of the Treasury Technical Knowledge of the candidate with a stronger comparison component.
DOWNLOAD the Treasurer Test dummy report.
Are you one of our highly valued peer members? You can now download your enhanced report in your Treasurer Test account. If you need any help, contact us via [email protected].
Website
The Treasurer Test has been uncoupled from the treasuryXL.com website, treasurertest.com is officially launched. The reason behind this is that Treasurer Test is an exclusive assessment product brand that has been grown and has its own identity. Where treasuryXL is expanding with the Dutch market as a basis, the Treasurer Test has been designed to serve the global market from the start.
Logo
New colors, new style and of course a new logo. The new Treasurer Test logo is developed with the idea that it needed more class now The Treasurer Test has been improved. A logo redesign was a matter of course.
We are very happy and proud on our redesign and now truly confirm what is indicated on our new homepage: “ Measure the technical knowledge in treasury and the personality of the candidate “.
Of course we will keep on developing and innovating and are open for feedback anytime.
TreasurerTest.com is live, for you, for your recruitment, your career advancement.
On behalf of Team Treasurer Test,
Community & Partner Manager at treasuryXL
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Cashforce raises €5 million in series a funding led by INKEF Capital & Citi Ventures
| 18-10-2019 | treasuryXL | Cashforce |
Cashforce, a Fintech leader in Cash forecasting & Working capital management, announced that it has closed € 5 million in Series A funding. The growth financing round was led by INKEF Capital and Citi Ventures. The existing investors Pamica NV, the investment company of Michel Akkermans, and Volta Ventures, are co-investing and reinforcing their commitment to the company.
Since 2018, Cashforce has demonstrated hyper-growth by developing multiple partnerships and by streamlining Cash forecasting processes & Working capital management for enterprise customers globally. New offices have been opened in London, Ghent and Copenhagen in 2019, with others (Zurich, Singapore…) to follow soon.
This funding round will accelerate global growth and presence in new markets.
“With the help of Cashforce’s technology, the way cash flow forecasts are generated and Working capital is managed can be radically transformed. By addressing these deep-seated challenges for many corporates using automation and AI, Cashforce is well-positioned and has tremendous potential to significantly help enterprises,” commented Corné Jansen, Managing Director of INKEF Capital.
”There is an increasing appetite in corporate treasury for integrated decision support tools from their banks for the next investment, fund or hedge action going beyond what their existing systems can provide today. As a prerequisite step to delivering such solutions from Citi, we look forward to collaborating with Cashforce to significantly improve our clients’ ability to aggregate disparate data sets across their enterprise to help better manage their working capital and more accurately predict through algorithmic techniques their potential liquidity exposure. At Citi, we are running a number of experiments collaborating with our clients and fintechs – such as CashForce – empowering our clients’ journey towards Smart Treasury. This journey moves them beyond descriptive analytics to decision support and decision automation, offering the opportunity to realise the promise of full automation of operational treasury,” said Ron Chakravarti, Citi Managing Director, Global Head – Treasury Advisory.
Executive Chairman Michel Akkermans and CEO Nicolas Christiaen stated: “Cash forecasting still remains one of the most important challenges for treasurers worldwide. The last three years have been very fruitful for us, developing our solution and broadening our eco-system through partnerships with global banks, treasury consultants and bank connectivity partners. Our mission remains unchanged: delivering reliable technology that enables financial leaders to make high-caliber decisions. We are therefore very enthusiastic about our new global strategic banking partnership with Citi, jointly offering their corporate clients a crystal-clear future.”
About INKEF Capital
INKEF Capital is an Amsterdam-based venture capital firm that focuses on long-term collaboration and active support of innovative technology companies. INKEF Capital was founded in 2010 by Dutch pension fund ABP and with €500 million under management is one of the largest venture capital funds in the Netherlands. INKEF focuses on investment opportunities in Healthcare, Technology, IT/New Media & FinTech.
About Citi Ventures
Citi Ventures ignites change and reimagines solutions that drive economic progress for clients. Headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices in San Francisco, New York, London and Tel Aviv, Citi Ventures accelerates discovery of new sources of value by exploring, incubating and investing in new ideas, in partnership with Citi colleagues, our clients, and the innovation ecosystem.
About Pamica
Pamica is the investment company of Michel Akkermans, is a serial entrepreneur in Fintech companies. Amongst others, he was the Chairman and CEO of successful companies such as FICS and Clear2Pay. After the global payment solution company Clear2Pay was acquired by FIS in 2014, he became an active investor and board member in several companies and private equity organizations, as well as a venture partner and Chairman of Volta Ventures.
About Volta Ventures
Volta Ventures Arkiv invests in young and ambitious internet and software companies in the Benelux. The fund has € 55 million under management and is supported by EIF and PMV.
How are largest European companies managing their financial risks?
17-10-2019 | Stanley Myint | BNP Paribas
The second edition of the “Handbook of Corporate Financial Risk Management” has just been published by Risk books. The handbook is written with all risk management professionals, practitioners, instructors and students in mind, but its core readership are Treasurers at non-financial corporations. It contains 43 real life case studies covering various risk management areas. The book aims to cover both financial risk management and optimal capital structure and its contents.
Motivation for the book
This Handbook is based on real-life client discussions we had in the Risk Management Advisory team at BNP Paribas between 2005 and 2019. We noticed that corporate treasurers and chief financial officers (CFOs) often have similar questions on risk management and capital structure and that these questions are rarely addressed in the existing literature.
This situation can and should lead to a fruitful collaboration between companies and their banks. Companies often come with the best ideas, but do not have the resources to test them. Leading banks, on the other hand, have strong computational resources, a broader sector perspective, an extensive experience in internal risk management, and the ability to develop and deliver the solution. So, if they make an effort to understand a client’s problem in depth, they may be able to add considerable value.
The Handbook is the result of such an effort lasting 14 years and covering more than 700 largest European corporations from all industrial sectors. Its subject is corporate financial risk management, ie, the management of financial risks for non-financial corporations.
While there are many papers on this topic, they are generally written by academics and rarely by practitioners. If we contrast this to the subject of risk management for banks, on which many books have been written from the practitioners’ perspective, we notice a significant gap. Perhaps this is because financial risk is clearly a more central part of business among banks and asset managers than in non-financial corporations. However, that does not mean that financial risk is only important for banks and asset managers. Let us look at one example.
Consider a large European automotive company, with an operating margin of 10%. More than half of its sales are outside Europe, while its production is in EUR. This exposes the company to currency risk. Annual currency volatility is of the order of 15%, therefore, if the foreign revenues fall by 15% due to FX, this can almost wipe out the net profits. Clearly an important question for this company is, “How to manage the currency risk?”
The book blends real corporate situations across capital structure, optimal level of cash, optimal fixed-floating mix and pensions, which are particularly topical now that negative EUR yields create unpresented funding opportunities for corporates, but also tricky challenges on cost of cash and pensions management
One reason why corporate risk management has so far attracted relatively little attention in literature is that, even though the questions asked are often simple (eg, “Should I hedge the translation risk?” or “Does hedging transaction risk reduce the translation risk?”) the answers are rarely simple, and in many cases there is no generally accepted methodology on how to deal with these issues.
So where does the company treasurer go to find answers to these kinds of questions? General corporate finance books are usually very shy when it comes to discussing risk management. Two famous examples of such books devote only 20 – 30 pages to managing financial risk, out of almost 1,000 pages in total. Business schools generally do not devote much time to risk management. We hope that our book goes a long way towards filling this gap.
Website
We invite the reader to utilise the free companion website which accompanies this book, www.corporateriskmanagement.org There, you will find periodic updates on new topics not covered in The Handbook. Much like the book this website should prove a useful resource to corporate treasurers, CFOs and other practitioners as well the academic readers interested in corporate risk management.
About the authors
Stanley Myint is the Head of Risk Management Advisory at BNP Paribas and an Associate Fellow at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford. At BNP Paribas, he advises large multinational corporations on issues related to risk management and capital structure. His expertise is in quantitative and corporate finance, focusing on fixed income derivatives and optimal capital structure. Stanley has 25 years of experience in this field, including 14 years at BNP Paribas and previously at McKinsey & Company, Royal Bank of Scotland and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. He has a PhD in physics from Boston University, a BSc in physics from Belgrade University and speaks French, Spanish, Serbo-Croatian and Italian. At the Saïd Business School, Stanley teaches two courses with Dimitrios Tsomocos and Manos Venardos: “Financial Crises and Risk Management” and “Fixed Income and Derivatives”.
Fabrice Famery is Head of Global Markets corporate sales at BNP Paribas. His group provides corporate clients with hedging solutions across interest rate, foreign exchange, commodity and equity asset classes. Corporate risk management has been the focus of Fabrice’s professional path for the past 30 years. He spent the first seven years of his career in the treasury department of the energy company, ELF, before joining Paribas (now BNP Paribas) in 1996, where he occupied various positions including FX derivative marketer, Head of FX Advisory Group and Head of the Fixed Income Corporate Solutions Group. Fabrice has published articles in Finance Director Europe and Risk Magazine, and has a master’s degree in international affairs from Paris Dauphine University (France).
Content:
Introduction
1 Theory and Practice of Corporate Risk Management *
2 Theory and Practice of Optimal Capital Structure *
PART I: FUNDING AND CAPITAL STRUCTURE
3 Introduction to Funding and Capital Structure
4 How to Obtain a Credit Rating
5 Refinancing Risk and Optimal Debt Maturity*
6 Optimal Cash Position *
7 Optimal Leverage *
PART II: INTEREST RATE AND INFLATION RISKS
8 Introduction to Interest Rate and Inflation Risks
9 How to Develop an Interest Rate Risk Management Policy
10 How to Improve Your Fixed-Floating Mix and Duration
11 Interest Rates: The Most Efficient Hedging Product*
12 Do You Need Inflation-linked Debt
13 Prehedging Interest Rate Risk
14 Pension Fund Asset and Liability Management
PART III: CURRENCY RISK
15 Introduction to Currency Risk
16 How to Develop an FX Risk Management Policy
17 Translation or Transaction: Netting FX Risks *
18 Early Warning Signals
19 How to Hedge High Carry Currencies*
20 Currency Risk on Covenants
21 Optimal Currency Composition of Debt 1:
Protect Book Value
22 Optimal Currency Composition of Debt 2:
Protect Leverage*
23 Cyclicality of Currencies and Use of Options to Manage Credit Utilisation *
24 Managing the Depegging Risk *
25 Currency Risk in Luxury Goods *
PART IV: CREDIT RISK
26 Introduction to Credit Risk
27 Counterparty Risk Methodology
28 Counterparty Risk Protection
29 Optimal Deposit Composition
30 Prehedging Credit Risk
31 xVA Optimisation *
PART V: M&A-RELATED RISKS
32 Introduction to M&A-related Risks
33 Risk Management for M&A
34 Deal-contingent Hedging *
PART VI: COMMODITY RISK
35 Introduction to Commodity Risk
36 Managing Commodity-linked Revenues and Currency Risk
37 Managing Commodity-linked Costs and Currency Risk
38 Commodity Input and Resulting Currency Risk *
39 Offsetting Carbon Emissions*
PART VII: EQUITY RISK
40 Introduction to Equity Risk*
41 Hedging Dilution Risk *
42 Hedging Deferred Compensation*
43 Stake-building*
Bibliography
Index
Note: Chapters marked with * are new to the second edition