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Treasury Management

BankingTechnologyTreasury Management
April 2, 2020

Supply Chain Finance Not Immune from Pandemic Pain Felt by Banks

Higher funding costs for banks amid COVID-19 mean wider spreads in SCF market.  An assistant treasurer at a major consumer goods company learned from supply-chain-finance (SCF) vendors that banks financing SCF assets have asked for wider spreads to compensate for their own higher funding costs, at least temporarily. The banks had agreed to a fixed spread that was still attractive in early March but, in the midst of the coronavirus economic meltdown, is much less so today. “It isn’t as…
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Senior ExecutiveTreasury Management
March 26, 2020

DIY: Forming Mentoring Circles That Lead to Sponsorship

More takeaways from the Women in NeuGroup meeting featuring three senior executives at one company. The Women in NeuGroup (WiNG) virtual meeting held last week highlighted the use of mentoring circles as a building block for sponsorship—where someone senior to you in the company advocates for your advancement. Our first story described how the process works at one major American multinational, as described by three senior executives. Below are more takeaways from the meeting as distilled by Anne Friberg, senior…
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BankingCapital MarketsTreasury 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…
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Senior ExecutiveTreasury Management
March 19, 2020

Using Mentoring Circles to Cultivate Organic Sponsorship for Women

Mentoring circles can help women find sponsors who can advocate for their career advancement. Three women who are senior finance executives at a major multinational corporation described how their company organically builds sponsorship using so-called mentoring circles to support the development needs of high-potential talent. The three spoke this week at a Women in NeuGroup virtual meeting. One of the women described mentoring circles as groups of 10 to 20 people led by more senior employees to discuss topics of…
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Treasury Management
March 17, 2020

A Coronavirus Crisis Treasury Playbook

Treasurers probably haven’t seen crises like this before. Here’s what they can learn from past events. The COVID-19 pandemic has presented the modern world with an almost unprecedented crisis. And the daily onslaught of worrying headlines—cancelled sports seasons and parades, Tom Hanks and wife infected, travel bans—seems to be triggering, mystifying actions by panicked consumers, like the run on toilet paper. But despite COVID-19’s unprecedented nature, for treasurers there actually is precedent, so there should be no mystery about what needs to be done (and…
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Senior ExecutiveTreasury Management
March 10, 2020

Org Charts and Beyond: How Leaders Help Prepare Teams for Change

Many treasurers want to give team members the skills to move to other areas or companies. NeuGroup members at a recent Treasurers’ Group of Thirty meeting delved into the nuances of treasury department organizational structures and how they meet specific company needs. Participants enjoyed seeing on a screen exactly how other treasury teams have been put together and why. And they had a laugh when one person didn’t recognize his own org chart. But many members clearly feel the weight…
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Treasury Management
March 5, 2020

What Should Treasury and Finance Functions Be Doing About the Coronavirus?

Something that warrants a rare FOMC inter-meeting rate cut calls for broader finance engagement. There is a lot of information, advice and checklists coming out on how businesses should respond to the coronavirus, or COVID-19. This one from McKinsey is a good example.  Health and safety first. A majority of companies, rightly, start with the most important steps to ensure the health and safety of employees, customers, suppliers and other stakeholders. Tabletop crisis response and planning. The next most important item tends to be the crisis…
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Senior ExecutiveTreasury Management
February 20, 2020

Mike Likes It, but Would Your Team Vote for an Open-Office Plan?

Open-office plans like the one Mike Bloomberg adopted at City Hall have fans and skeptics. Where do you stand (sit)? Presidential hopeful Mike Bloomberg in December tweeted the picture above of the “bullpen” office he had as New York City mayor and wrote, “I’ll turn the East Room into an open-office plan, where I’ll sit with our team.” No one can say if that will ever happen, of course. But the subject of open-office plans definitely sparked interest at a…
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Risk ManagementTreasury Management
February 6, 2020

Crisis Management Brings Executives Together

Having a crisis response plan can help make the company more resilient now and later. Following a framework for crisis response planning that engages management as well as the board can create significant political capital for internal audit, not to mention better prepare the company for crises that may arise. Multipurpose framework. The head of internal audit at a major government contractor said in a recent NeuGroup meeting that his company uses the National Fire Protection Association 1600 Standard on…
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Senior ExecutiveTreasury Management
February 4, 2020

Appealing to Millennials and Gen Zers: The Academic Perspective

Insights from the Foster School of Business on what today’s MBAs want—and what treasurers have to say. Corporates who want to hire MBA finance graduates face a highly competitive market and are well served by knowing what the current crop of millennials and Gen Zers value most when weighing job offers. That was among the key takeaways from a presentation by faculty and administrators at the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business to the members of a group of…
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