2020-Year-of-The-Rat
NeuGroup News
January 24, 2020

Happy Year of the Rat

Chinese New Year celebrations unfortunately are being overshadowed this year by virus fears, but let’s not let fear get in the way of embracing the start of the Year of the Rat on January 25 and what it stands for. The rat is the first of the 12 animal cycles, so it represents renewal and new beginnings. This seems very appropriate for the start of a new decade. 2020 is the Year of the Metal Rat so it is a…
NeuGroup News
January 21, 2020

AI Meets Cash Forecasting at AT&T Stadium

On February 4th, we are facilitating a knowledge exchange meeting for a small group of treasurers at AT&T Stadium in Dallas, TX. We will be meeting in the post-game interview room. If those walls could talk. This is a unique opportunity to get invaluable feedback from peers on what you’re working on to both spur innovation and validate best practice. Since every NeuGroup meeting starts with a projects and priorities discussion, you can learn what peers are working on and…
Treasury ManagementUncategorized
December 19, 2019

Among Execs, CFOs Most Worried About 2020 Risks

CFOs are more worried about 2020 risks than others in the C-Suite: study. Corporate finance executives are leading the pack in terms of company executives most worried about the magnitude and severity of risks to their organizations in 2020, according to a study by the Enterprise Risk Management Initiative (ERMI) at North Carolina State University and Protiviti. On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being most concerned, chief financial officers’ impression of risk faced by their companies in the year…
Capital MarketsUncategorized
December 19, 2019

Deutsche Bank: Floating-Rate Debt’s Historical Attractiveness vs. Fixed Is Falling

A falling term premium suggests fixed-rate debt is a better bet for issuers; but the evidence is mixed. Backtesting shows that issuing floating-rate debt has been cheaper than fixed-rate for corporates over the long run. But the co-head of Deutsche Bank’s risk management solutions team for North America told treasurers at a recent NeuGroup meeting that floating-rate debt currently does not look nearly as attractive relative to fixed as it once did.  “Whatever you thought about fixed vs floating before,…
NeuGroup NewsTreasury ManagementUncategorized
December 17, 2019

Taking a Leap: Learning to Become an Exponential Organization

Founder’s Edition, by Joseph Neu Like so many companies, NeuGroup is rising to the challenge of becoming exponential. The recent FinConnect event we helped facilitate for SoftBank’s Vision Fund I CFOs helped me to see NeuGroup’s own path to higher growth, thanks to the insights of the keynote speaker we enlisted (hat tip to Peter Marshall at EY). The speaker was the futurist Salim Ismail, author of Exponential Organizations. Mr. Ismail advises companies on how to achieve exponential growth and thrive rather…
Treasury ManagementUncategorized
December 12, 2019

Preparing to Plow Through The Next Recession

How one company survived the Great Recession, and advice on how to prepare for the next downturn. With an economic slowdown looming—even if no one knows exactly when it will occur or how severe it will be—companies must prepare for the worst. It doesn’t get much worse than the slump Caterpillar Inc. experienced in 2009, when sales and revenue plummeted. But the company remained profitable and maintained its dividend. How did Caterpillar achieve its remarkable performance? Recession planning was the…
Capital MarketsUncategorized
December 12, 2019

Group Therapy for FX Systems Pain: Misery Loves Company

FX managers for the most part like their systems. But there’s always that one thing that creates a headache. Leo Tolstoy famously posited that “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” That line from “Anna Karenina” can definitely be applied to treasury practitioners and their systems. In a discussion at a recent NeuGroup meeting jokingly dubbed the systems “misery montage,” three FX managers members shared their biggest pain points, most of which derive from…
BankingTechnologyUncategorized
December 10, 2019

Back to the Future: Making Banks a Source for Innovative Solutions Again

Founder’s Edition, by Joseph Neu Working to reverse the notion that banks are no longer a source for innovative solutions. One of the trends we’ve seen in interacting with NeuGroup members recently is their concern that banks are no longer the source for innovation or solutions that tap the most innovative technology and digital thinking. And banks seem to be hearing this message, prompting them to respond to counter that perception. Unfortunately, some banks find it easier to respond with…
Capital MarketsUncategorized
December 5, 2019

No More Libor-SOFR 101, Please! Treasurers Want Implementation Details

Treasurers say they need specifics on market conventions to complete the SOFR risk puzzle. Many treasury teams don’t want any more bank presentations on Libor-SOFR transition timelines or the basics of risk and fallback language—they want details from bankers, regulators and industry groups on various market conventions. These include how exactly SOFR term rates will be calculated in the cash markets, specifics on any compounding methodology, settlement conventions like lookbacks, and the spread adjustment from Libor to SOFR.“We need details about the market…
Treasury ManagementUncategorized
December 5, 2019

When Treasury Needs to Blow Its Own Horn

How metrics help treasury teams market their successes in good times. Treasury teams get plenty of attention in financially volatile times, but in the good times their more mundane if still critical activities—reducing bank accounts, hedging foreign exchange, etc.—tend to go unnoticed. “If we don’t convey the value treasury provides in good times and in bad, no one else will,” said Ed Scott, senior executive advisor at NeuGroup and former treasurer at Caterpillar, who co-led a recent NeuGroup meeting of…