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Investment Management

Capital MarketsESGInvestment Management
May 14, 2020

ESG: A Leading Indicator of Quality for Federated Hermes

The asset manager believes an active ownership approach to responsible investing is how to navigate this market.“ESG Investing Shines in Market Turmoil, With Help From Big Tech,” shouted a headline in the Wall Street Journal this week. The story reports that investors put a record $12 billion into ESG funds in the first four months of 2020, according to Morningstar Direct, more than double the same period last year. And more than 70% of ESG funds across all asset classes…
Antony Michels
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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
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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
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Capital MarketsInvestment ManagementRisk Management
April 21, 2020

Seizing Opportunities, Waiting for More and Getting Back to Work

Quick Takes, COVID-19 edition: A roundup of news, notes and notions from the NeuGroup Network. Strategic Acquistions: Waiting for Small Biotechs to Adjust to Lower ValuesHere’s some post-meeting follow-up from a treasurer in the biotech industry on his expectations for a “resetting of asset prices” and opportunities for strategic acquisitions as markets gyrate. “I would characterize it as an emerging opportunity. So far, you have had price adjustments (lower stock prices) for smaller biotechs. But you need two parties to…
Antony Michels
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Capital AllocationInsights NewsletterInvestment Management
January 21, 2020

What Would an AI-Driven Capital Allocation Look Like?

Founder’s Edition, by Joseph Neu Perennial discussions of capital allocation tend to end up in essentially the same place.My friend Tom Joyce at Deutsche Bank circulated the chart below last week in his “Chart of the Day” email. This one caught my eye because it shows how corporate uses of capital, at least at the S&P 500-company level, are pretty consistent year to year. M&A and Buybacks. Tom calls out the changes: “During the current M&A upcycle, which began in late…
Ted Howard
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Capital MarketsInvestment ManagementUncategorized
November 29, 2019

Prepare for a Surging Green Wave of ESG Products

By Joseph Neu BNP Paribas highlights a veritable tsunami of sustainability-linked finance products.   “Treasurers should be preparing for a tsunami of sustainability-linked finance products,” one NeuGroup member treasurer told me recently in response to market events of the last year. To underscore the importance of that notion, Hervé Duteil, chief sustainability officer for BNP Paribas in the Americas, presented his view to NeuGroup’s Tech20 Treasurers’ Peer Group last month. He described three big waves, or “revolutions,” in sustainable finance:…
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Insights NewsletterInvestment ManagementUncategorized
November 6, 2019

Prepping Pensions for Potentially Perilous Periods

By Joseph Neu Managers of frozen or closed pension funds need to be prepared for transitional periods.  Managers of pension funds on a decumulation journey (with more cash flows going out of the plan than coming in) need to be wary of the different dynamics in this stage of the savings cycle. Investors are more vulnerable to shocks and more susceptible to forced selling, all with a greater time dependency on realizing returns. This is particularly true during periods of…
neugroup
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BankingInvestment Management
January 22, 2019

Beware Zero-Based Floors

Chatham: Banks embedding zero-based floors in the fine-print on some floating debt. With rates going negative around the world, banks are embedding zero-based floors into the floating-rate loans they provide, and while on the surface that seems like a plus, they can end up carrying a big price. That was one of several insights on today’s uncertain financial markets that Kennett Square, PA-headquartered Chatham Financial provided in a recent market update titled. “Global uncertainty packs a local punch.” Zero-based floors…
Ted Howard
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