NeuGroup News
March 10, 2021

Virtual First-Half Meetings Kick Off With FX, Mega-Caps and Automation

NeuGroup’s first half meeting cycle kicks off this month with four peer group meetings in the next few weeks.  Today, NeuGroup kicks off its 2021 semiannual virtual meetings in full force with the Foreign Exchange Group 1 meeting. Through the next few weeks, a number of peer group meetings will follow, setting our first-half meeting cycle in motion.  Semiannual peer group meetings are the core offering of NeuGroup, and the primary venue through which members engage with one another. Peer groups have historically met twice a year in person in one-to-two-day sessions with the…
BankingESG
March 9, 2021

Green Discount: Treasury Wins With a Sustainability-Linked Revolver

After a corporate successfully launched a sustainability-linked revolver, the treasurer’s phone started ringing.When it came time for one NeuGroup member to renew an existing five-year revolver, he saw an opportunity to improve pricing and generate positive PR by leveraging the ESG goals that the company had recently put in place. The member’s company worked with BNP Paribas and Unicredit to structure a multibillion-dollar sustainability-linked revolver, the first one in its industry sector.“I’ve received a lot of calls from other treasurers…
Capital MarketsTalking ShopTechnology
March 9, 2021

Talking Shop: A Fintech Collects Capital Markets Pricing Data

Background: Members of NeuGroup for Capital Markets recently heard a presentation from InterPrice Technologies, a woman-owned fintech that collects pricing data for issuers. The company says its platform gives corporates access to their costs of capital “at any point in time and streamlines their communication with financing partners.” The technology “automatically aggregates bond, commercial paper and loan indications into intuitive dashboards across currencies and financing products,” InterPrice says. InterPrice on Monday announced it has raised $2.5 million in seed money…
InsuranceRisk Management
March 9, 2021

Insurance and the Efficient Frontier: What Happens in a Soft Market?

NeuGroup members respond to Willis Towers Watson’s risk strategy of using modern portfolio theory for insurance. Willis Towers Watson recently presented to NeuGroup members an approach to modernizing how corporates buy insurance. As NeuGroup Insights explained last week, it involves modern portfolio theory and the efficient frontier. The presentation intrigued many members, including one who said WTW provided a great overview of the central idea. He wondered how treasury would effectively convey this new way of managing risk to the CFO…
InsuranceRisk Management
March 4, 2021

Solving the Insurance Problem With an Efficient Frontier for Risk

Willis Towers Watson advocates an approach that makes use of modern portfolio theory to assess the true value of insurance.For more than a year, buying and renewing insurance policies has been a severe pain point for many finance teams, all suffering through a hard market of rising premiums, higher retentions and lower capacity. And the pandemic. That makes now a good time to consider a modernized approach to insurance and risk finance strategy that takes what Willis Towers Watson (WTW) calls…
FXRisk ManagementTechnology
March 4, 2021

AtlasFX and FiREapps: How Two FX Risk Management Systems Stack Up

NeuGroup members share what they need from FX risk management solutions, what they get and what could be better.A need for automation, a user-friendly interface and consistent accuracy were among the highest priorities in selecting an FX risk management platform for members at a recent NeuGroup meeting that zeroed in on FiREapps and AtlasFX.AtlasFX ‘dream state.’ One member who recently worked with AtlasFX to adopt the platform lauded the firm’s flexibility and willingness to meet his company’s requests. “We came…
RegionalTalking Shop
March 4, 2021

Talking Shop: Italy’s New Way to Make Public Administration Payments

Member question: “As of the end of Feb., it is mandatory to pay the public administration in Italy through a payment system called PagoPA. To my knowledge, none of the big banks support this. We currently use a local Italian partner bank for this purpose. “Does anybody know if it is also mandatory to pay the public administration through this PagoPA system when paying from a nonresident legal entity outside Italy?” Peer answer 1: “We are in the process of…
BankingCapital AllocationCapital Markets
March 2, 2021

A Third Path for Stock Buybacks: Enhanced Open Market Repurchases

Some NeuGroup members have turned to eOMRs to get the flexibility of OMRs and pricing below VWAP, like ASRs.Many NeuGroup members across groups at recent meetings agreed they have enough excess liquidity and trust in market stability to restart share repurchases; but there has been a range of views about how much emphasis to place on the price per share a corporate pays for its own stock. Where companies fall on the spectrum of answers may determine if they opt…
Capital AllocationCapital MarketsESG
March 2, 2021

Getting Granular on Green Bond Proceeds: Capex? Opex? Both?

Some investors prefer that green bonds finance capex projects, but corporates use proceeds for opex, too—with caveats.How a corporate intends to spend the proceeds from a green bond is integral to deciding whether to issue the bond in the first place. You need to have sufficient uses to create a deal that is large enough to make the costs worthwhile and ensure that investors will participate. NeuGroup members at a recent ESG working group meeting addressed a related, more granular…
Cash & Working CapitalTalking Shop
March 2, 2021

Talking Shop: Holding Physical Cash ‘Under the Mattress’

Member question: For business continuity or emergency use purposes, are you holding any physical cash on hand at one of your sites?Peer Survey Results: “No” wins in a landslide.Peer answer: “Our US company does not currently keep any cash ‘under the mattress,’ however I do think there are some places around the globe that do have some . “I’m assuming you are asking this post-Fedwire disruption? Was anyone negatively impacted by that? I am wondering if anyone is preparing any…