All Posts By

Ted Howard

Capital MarketsTreasury Management
May 28, 2020

How Corporates Tapping Capital Markets Use Minority and Diversity Firms

NeuGroup members discuss benefits, challenges and process as treasury promotes diversity and inclusion.  Many treasury teams at multinational corporations strive to include firms owned by women, people of color and disabled veterans when selling debt, buying back stock or issuing commercial paper. At a recent NeuGroup meeting focusing on capital markets, members shared their insights on the process of including minority and diversity firms in various transactions.Formalize the process. The member who kicked off the discussion described her company’s path…
Ted Howard
Love0
Capital MarketsInvestment ManagementRisk Management
May 21, 2020

Investment Managers Balance Need for Liquidity and Desire for Yield 

More cash and falling interest rates have some corporates weighing a return to prime funds.Many treasury teams have plenty of cash to invest but not many places to park it that offer attractive yields. That has some of them debating whether, when and how to add risk to their portfolios while preserving capital and liquidity. The challenge is figuring out “how to optimize cash in a very short portfolio,” as one member put it. Here’s some of what others said this…
Ted Howard
Love0
Risk ManagementTechnology
May 21, 2020

Aligning Risks to Inculcate Risk Awareness

How one company’s ERM team is raising risk awareness and its own profile by organizing the firm’s sprawling risks.Sometimes the best way to add importance to your function is to look to the top. To management, that is. This was what one company’s enterprise risk management team did to accomplish two things: help organize the company’s risks and add a level of seriousness to the function itself.The head of this ERM team recently described, at NeuGroup’s Corporate ERM Group’s annual meeting,…
Ted Howard
Love0
Accounting & DisclosureCapital MarketsFXRisk Management
May 7, 2020

Crisis Forces Consideration of Unwinding Cash-Flow Hedges

The COVID-19 crisis has reduced exposures to a point where for many companies those hedges may not be needed anymore. Time to unwind? If you’re planning on unwinding a cash-flow hedge, there are many things to think about before you do. Determining when and why to unwind, as well as how to view the transaction’s cost benefits, and what counterparty to use, are just a few of the factors to consider. This was the topic of discussion among NeuGroup FX Managers’…
Ted Howard
Love0
Cyber riskRisk ManagementTreasury Management
May 7, 2020

Cyberattacks: Post-Pandemic May Be Worse Than the Lockdown

Best practices pre-pandemic have become even more important as the economy reopens. A top treasury concern for years, cyberattacks ramped up following the sudden transition to the work-from-home regimen prompted by the pandemic. They’ll likely ramp up even further when the economy begins opening up.  That was among the takeaways from a session on cybersecurity at a recent virtual NeuGroup meeting headed by Jenny Menna, deputy chief information security officer at U.S. Bank, and Chris Moschovitis, CEO of technology consultancy tmg-emedia.…
Ted Howard
Love0
Capital MarketsCash & Working CapitalCOVID-19
May 7, 2020

Pandemic Reveals the Haves and the Have Nots: Asia Report

Examples of the varying effects lockdowns had on businesses, and how they’ve responded. The coronavirus pandemic has provided more proof that crises affect some companies far differently than others. The reasons include what industry a company is in, its business model and how much cash it has on hand—the haves and the have-nots. Perhaps less expected is that business units within the same company may weather a storm better than others. All this and more emerged in discussions among finance…
Ted Howard
Love0
COVID-19Treasury Management
April 28, 2020

Keeping the Company Strong after the Initial Hit

Companies have survived the early impact of COVID-19; now the focus is keeping the concern going.There is a lot of talk in treasury and risk circles lately about business continuity plans or BCPs. The talk is mainly around whether the plans worked and what lessons have been learned in the latest crisis. But there has not been as much talk about business resiliency, that is, whether the company, now in the throes of major health crisis, can hang in there…
Ted Howard
Love0
Capital MarketsCash & Working CapitalCOVID-19Investment Management
April 28, 2020

Pandemic Lessons Learned by Treasurers in Asia

How finance teams respond to the need for cash depends in part on their ability to tap global cash pools.As the pandemic brought  the world to a standstill, the primary concern of many multinational corporations centered on sustaining their operations, assuming no cash inflows for at least 30 days. For almost every company, that requires a lot of cash! That was among the takeaways from member comments at a recent NeuGroup virtual meeting of treasurers in Asia in early April.Cash…
Ted Howard
Love0
Capital MarketsCOVID-19Investment ManagementTreasury Management
April 28, 2020

Funding Is Top Priority for Treasurers amid Pandemic: Poll

Treasurers have funding on their minds as they deal with COVID-19. BCP and supply chains also a concern.Securing funding is a top priority for corporate treasurers thrust into the role of organizing companies’ financial response amid the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a recent poll by Bloomberg and Greenwich Associates. Following funding, treasurers say their attention is also on business continuity plans and suppliers.Many treasurers have been tasked with making sure key suppliers have the resources to stay in business and…
Ted Howard
Love0
COVID-19
April 23, 2020

Pandemic Economy: The Ugly, the Bad, and the Good

From a US standpoint, no matter how experts look at it, the pandemic has created an economic nightmare scenario. But in Asia there may be glimmers of hope. The pandemic has ravaged the global economy and as it lingers, offers little hope of a V-shaped recovery when it eases. It is therefore understandable that the economic prognosis, viewed from that trough of despair, looks pretty ugly. However, the perspectives of several CFOs in Asia participating in a NeuGroup virtual meeting,…
Ted Howard
Love0