Founder’s takeaways from the Treasurers’ Group of Mega-Caps 2020 H2 meeting.
By Joseph Neu
A green bond that moves the needle on E&S. One member shared insight from his company’s recent green bond offering that included a pair of African-American-owned investment banking firms among the four lead underwriters.
- Not only is this member company breaking new ground with its second green bond, leveraging the experience and reporting infrastructure established with the first, but it is paving the way for further diversity firm involvement in this important issuance segment by bringing in firms from day one and making them true partners in the deal.
- His company also asked the two bulge-bracket lead underwriters to assign minority bankers to leading roles on their deal teams to further promote professional diversity on the part of its vendors.
- Few have gone farther to meaningfully tick the E and S box at the same time—well done. The economics of the bond were also groundbreaking, suggesting that it does pay to do good.
Contingency plans for an election year. With US Presidential elections less than 40 days out, members have been working on contingency plans, including those on the outlook for the dollar, US interest rates and especially those involving a retroactive corporate tax increase well as other measures impacting multinational tax planning.
- Liability management trades have picked up as a result, as has analysis of global liquidity management structures including in-house banks and where to locate them. A close and contested election could also trigger market events that treasury teams should be ready for.
