By Ted Howard
The April issue of iTreasurer begins with a story that could definitely be filed under “boring but important.” It’s about directors and officers insurance (D&O), which is becoming a larger part of risk management for corporate treasurers. The reasons are many, including premiums rising worldwide, in some cases exponentially. Also, activists often aren’t happy with capital structure or M&A plans and to thwart those plans file suits against companies and their boards. Finally, growing concerns about companies’ environmental impacts, as well as the #MeToo movement have made managements more aware of the need for the coverage.
In our Anticipated Exposures section, companies are continuing the stock buyback binge, with a record number of authorizations in February. Meanwhile, a demonstration of a business risk and insurance chatbot that answers employees’ routine requests for certificates of insurance turned out to be one of the most popular sessions at a recent peer group meeting. Also, although many members of NeuGroup’s FX Managers’ Peer Group over the years have stuck with static hedging, most members continue to stay flexible with a dynamic approach along with a smattering of static. But at a recent meeting it was suggested they ditch static completely. Finally, last year’s global transaction banking revenues were the highest they’ve been in years. The 10 largest global banks hit their highest level in eight years in 2018, according to research firm Coalition.
NeuGroup founder Joseph Neu discusses what’s keeping treasurers awake at night or disturbing their sleep. The top three sources of many nightmare scenarios include cyberrisk and related fraud, a long-standing worry that does not seem to be dissipating, suggesting that countermeasures including anti-fraud awareness and training efforts are not sufficient. Next come geopolitical risks, and in this category the biggest concern is China—its slowing economy and the impact of its trade war with the US on other economies in Asia and elsewhere. The final big concern is digital transformation: failing to optimize. This has multiple aspects, involving the interaction of people, data processes and technology (aka people, process and systems) and will likely interrupt members’ restful sleep for many meeting cycles to come.
This month has two NeuGroup peer group summaries, the Treasurers’ Group of Thirty Large-Cap Edition (T30LC) and the Internal Auditors’ Peer Group (IAPG).
Members of the T30LC met at the New York City offices of BNP Paribas, whose bankers noted that there will be Brexit hurdles even if a deal is inked, and gave an update on the migration away from the Libor benchmark.
Members and guests who attended IAPG’s second-half meeting, which was held at Microsoft in Redmond, Wash., focused most of their discussions on cyber challenges and risk, but still covered a wide range of topics. Participants began the meeting with a lengthy opening spent talking about current challenges and other notable business.
Finally, starting up treasury from scratch and need it to quickly scale as your company expands a rapid clip? iTreasurer recently sat down with Chatham Financial managing director Amol Dhargalkar, who advises corporations on risk management and other issues, to hear what growing companies need to consider.