Capital MarketsCash & Working CapitalCOVID-19
March 26, 2020

Beyond Revolvers: What NeuGroup Members are Talking About Now

More of Joseph Neu’s takeaways from virtual meetings dominated by talk of cash and liquidity. The waterfall of insights cascading from NeuGroup’s virtual meetings this month requires expert judgment on wringing out and distilling what matters most. One expert is NeuGroup founder and CEO Joseph Neu, who on Tuesday offered his take on tapping credit lines. Here are some of his other takeaways: Converts as an option. Industrial companies said they are looking at the convertible debt market as a financing…
Capital MarketsCOVID-19
March 24, 2020

Bonds in the Time of COVID-19: Timing Is Everything

Treasury teams need to be prepared to pounce as investor sentiment shifts wildly in capital markets. Be prepared so you can be nimble. That’s the advice from a treasurer whose company pounced when investor sentiment in the investment grade corporate bond market allowed nine corporates to issue $25 billion in debt on one day this month before the window slammed shut again amid COVID-19 fear. “You have to take what the market gives you and respond to the environment around…
BankingCapital MarketsCOVID-19
March 24, 2020

Little or No Pushback Has Corporates Drawing on Credit Lines—At What Cost?

Founder’s Edition by Joseph Neu Insights on the reasons to tap revolvers and what the trend may mean for banks and treasury. One clear insight emerging during our first several NeuGroup virtual meetings as the COVID-19 crisis escalates is that corporates are taking a slew of steps to bolster their liquidity positions. Among the most notable: All but the most stellar credits are drawing on revolving credit facilities (RCFs), a move that has potentially profound implications for banks. As Reuters…
BankingCapital MarketsCOVID-19Treasury Management
March 19, 2020

Communication Is Key When Drawing on a Revolver

Get buy-in from internal and external stakeholders as you guard against a COVID-19 liquidity crunch. Every day seems to bring news of another multinational corporation drawing down some or all of a revolving credit facility to weather potential liquidity disruptions created by market reaction to the coronavirus outbreak. News reports say private equity firms like Blackstone are encouraging portfolio companies to tap credit lines. The companies recently tapping revolvers include Kraft Heinz, L Brands and Carnival. NeuGroup Insights reached out…
BankingCapital Markets
March 17, 2020

Not All Bank Fees Are Created Equal

In good times and bad, treasury teams benefit from knowing how their banks look at the world. That's one reason this chart, created by NeuGroup's Scott Flieger, is compelling. It shows which products are especially important to banks by measuring both their relative profitability and how much balance sheet impact they have. A third dimension shows which products result in predictable revenue and which are more episodic in nature. Most members found the slide "directionally accurate" and helpful in explaining why…
Capital MarketsLibor SOFR
March 12, 2020

It’s Time for Nonfinancial Corporates to Gear Up Libor-SOFR Transition Plans

Founder’s Edition, by Joseph Neu NeuGroup member calls with corporate treasury leaders reveal preparation gaps. Some NeuGroup corporate members—nonfinancial institutions—are well on track with planning to transition off Libor before the end of 2021. One company, Ford Motor, has even joined the Alternative Reference Rates Committee (ARRC), a group of private-sector participants convened by the Federal Reserve Board and the New York Fed to help identify alternatives to Libor and develop strategies to promote their use.  However, the majority of…
Capital MarketsNGIPension and Benefits
March 5, 2020

Actuarial Agony: Falling Interest Rates and the Plight of Pension Fund Managers

Private equity helps matters, but track records of outperformance don’t sway actuaries. Falling interest rates are pushing down the expected return on assets (EROA) at pension funds, an unwanted development for all managers and especially aggravating, perhaps, for those who have historically been able to outperform expectations. That was among the takeaways from a recent NeuGroup pension roundtable. Blame it on the actuaries. The pension fund manager at a major media company maintained an EROA of 7.5% over the last…
Capital MarketsLibor SOFR
March 3, 2020

Fed Official to NeuGroup Members: The Time to Start Paying Attention to Libor’s End Is Now

ARRC liaison David Bowman explains the implications of SOFR and what corporates need to do now.Corporate treasury teams that have paid little or no attention to the planned transition from Libor to SOFR, take note: That stance makes much less sense today than last year and “won’t make any sense” by the end of this year, in the view of David Bowman, the senior staff liaison from the Federal Reserve Board of Governors to the Alternative Reference Rates Committee (ARRC).…
Capital MarketsUncategorized
March 2, 2020

Hard to Let Go: Markets Slow to Move from Libor to New Benchmark

October 09, 2019 By Ted Howard Banks are still using the London Interbank Offered Rate but SOFR is slowly gaining traction. The members of NeuGroup’s Bank Treasurers’ Peer Group (BTPG) recently heard Chatham Financial discuss the switch from Libor to SOFR on their Q3 interim conference call. The big takeaway is that Libor remains firmly embedded in a lot of transactions, and even though banks understand that the tainted benchmark will disappear in the near future, the transition is inching…
Capital MarketsPension and BenefitsRisk Management
February 25, 2020

No Slam Dunk for Pension Fund Managers: Selling Leverage-Averse Boards on Overlays

The popularity of overlays is increasing in the US despite concerns of executive committees. Leverage is something of a dirty word in the world of pension funds and that, perhaps, presents the biggest challenge that pension fund managers face when seeking to persuade their companies’ executive committees to use overlays that use derivatives as a fund-management tool.At a roundtable of pension fund managers arranged by the NeuGroup, one participant said his team had begun to explore how to “de-risk” the…