Category

Cash & Working Capital

BankingCash & Working CapitalESG
November 29, 2023

Cashing In: Trade Finance Fuels Working Capital, Boosts Sales

How HSBC helped an energy company optimize working capital, boost sales and keep a key client happy about payment terms. Earlier this year, the treasurer at a clean energy company found himself in a precarious position: he needed to get cash in the door faster to fund operating expenses, but the corporate’s annual revenue is heavily reliant on a few large clients who had negotiated long payment terms. At a recent session of NeuGroup for ESG, the treasurer dug into the…
Justin Jones
Love0
Cash & Working CapitalTechnology
October 25, 2023

Liquidity and Capital Structure Top Treasury’s 2024 Priorities

NeuGroup’s Treasury and Finance Agenda Survey also shows more emphasis and urgency on digital transformation. The biggest risk facing companies next year is an economic downturn, according to preliminary results of NeuGroup’s 2024 Treasury and Finance Agenda Survey. At the same time, 57% of respondents predict interest rates will remain high or even go higher. The result is that treasury teams placed liquidity and capital structure optimization at the top of their objectives for the coming year (see ranking below).…
Justin Jones
Love0
Cash & Working CapitalTalking Shop
October 19, 2023

Talking Shop: Cleaning Up a Messy Short-Term Cash Forecast

Editor’s note: NeuGroup’s online communities provide members a forum to pose questions and give answers. Talking Shop shares valuable insights from these exchanges, anonymously. Send us your responses: [email protected]. Context: Cash forecasting is a perennial challenge for both treasury and FP&A teams, but the two functions tend to approach the problem from different perspectives. Treasury, responsible for short-term liquidity and cash management, depends more on bottom-up, direct forecasts. FP&A, concerned with planning and budgeting for the longer term, typically uses a top-down,…
Justin Jones
Love0
Cash & Working CapitalFXTechnology
September 27, 2023

Machine Learning Wizardry: Analytics-Based Cash-Type Forecasting

Data science “wizards” and clean, treasury-tagged cash transaction data are transforming cash forecasting at one corporate. Transaction tagging, data science “wizards,” statistical models and machine learning (ML) are the current cornerstones of an ambitious, yearslong project by treasury at one NeuGroup member company to transform cash forecasting—which now includes grouping cash transactions by type. The FX leader and a member of his team shared details of the project, some of its successes and what they have learned along the way…
Justin Jones
Love0
Capital AllocationCash & Working Capital
September 13, 2023

Marriage or Dating: Dividends vs. Buybacks for Capital Return

What companies facing pressure from investors to return capital need to consider as they mature and growth slows. The decision to start paying a dividend to return capital to shareholders is one that growing companies don’t take lightly—and for good reason: the consequences of later lowering or eliminating the quarterly payouts is an undeniably bearish signal in the eyes of most investors. That fact informed discussions about dividends and share repurchases among members of NeuGroup for Large-Cap Assistant Treasurers at their first-half…
Justin Jones
Love0
Cash & Working CapitalInvestment Management
September 7, 2023

Collaboration with Treasury as Key to Improving Working Capital

Breaking down silos between treasury, AP and procurement to optimize invoice processing and strategic liquidity management. With interest rates likely to remain higher for longer, opportunistic treasury teams want to invest excess cash where it can earn attractive yields. One obstacle standing in the way at some companies stems from differing priorities between accounts payable (AP), which often aims to pay invoices as soon as possible, and treasury, which has a more strategic view of liquidity. At a recent session of NeuGroup…
Justin Jones
Love0
Cash & Working CapitalFXRegional
August 9, 2023

Argentina: Trapped Cash, Election Tea Leaves, Chinese Currency

Dollar-linked investments are one way multinationals are preparing for a possible devaluation of the Argentine peso. Multinational corporations closely watching Argentina’s primary elections on Aug. 13 for a preview of the general presidential election in October face significant uncertainty about the magnitude and timing of a possible devaluation of the Argentine peso. Many are seeking ways to hedge their exposure to the currency as they struggle to get trapped cash out of a country with capital controls, spiraling inflation, taxes on imports and a scarcity…
Justin Jones
Love0
Cash & Working CapitalFP&A
August 3, 2023

Boosting Agility by Increasing Speed in Budgeting and Planning

Balancing act: FP&A must balance a faster budget cycle with business unit accountability and effective targets. Agility is about keeping up with and adjusting to the rapid pace of change in market and business conditions. This flexibility often runs counter to FP&A’s deliberate, typically granular, budget-setting process. At a recent session on agility in annual planning, members of NeuGroup for Heads of FP&A discussed how to balance the need for speed with setting effective performance targets and ensuring business unit-level accountability. Keeping…
Justin Jones
Love0
Cash & Working CapitalESG
July 19, 2023

Walmart Spurs Suppliers To Cut Carbon With Special Finance Terms

The retailer’s Sustainable SCF program via HSBC helps suppliers access capital and reduce its Scope 3 emissions. The toughest nut to crack for many corporates committed to reducing their carbon footprint is so-called Scope 3 emissions generated by their suppliers. To address the challenge and encourage its suppliers to cut carbon, NeuGroup member Walmart established a Sustainable Supply Chain Finance (SCF) program with HSBC through which companies can access more favorable conditions than available in traditional SCF offerings. To qualify,…
Justin Jones
Love0
Cash & Working CapitalCryptoThe NeuGroup Insights Interview
June 28, 2023

Accept Crypto as Currency? What Airbnb Asked Before Answering

Airbnb treasurer Brian Moore explains, in a video clip, the travel company’s cost-benefit analysis of cryptocurrency. In January 2022, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky received 4,000 responses from Twitter followers after asking for suggestions on what the travel company could launch that year. No. 1 on the list: crypto payments. Flash forward a year and a half, and Airbnb does not accept cryptocurrency from customers or use crypto to pay hosts. At least not yet. In a video clip from a forthcoming Strategic Finance Lab podcast interview,…
Justin Jones
Love0

Connecting Every Finance Professional Who Wants To Share And Learn

Learn more

Knowledge Exchange

About

Need help?

©2023 - NeuGroup, Inc.

Privacy Policy