What’s on International Treasurer’s radar screen this week.
Like the global financial markets, Europe dominated this week’s International Treasurer editorial meeting. One thing we’ll be delving deeper into is the legal ramifications of a eurozone collapse or of one or two countries bowing out. Also, we’ll talk to systems vendors to see what they have to say in terms of preparations for a euro disruption event. We’ll also talk to transaction banks to get their take. Finally, away from Europe, we’ll take a look at the prospect of stock buybacks for 2012.
Europe’s legal ramifications. Eurozone is moving (perhaps a better word is trudging) towards agreement on a new multilateral agreement aimed at greater fiscal convergence. Most but not all non-Eurozone members of the EU (except for the United Kingdom) have agreed to put any new agreement before their national parliaments. Nonetheless many observers wonder about jurisdiction issues in the event of a eurozone breakup – either as a whole (widely seen as unlikely) or just a country or two (more likely but slim).
During a European Crisis conference call with members of the NeuGroup peer group universe, several members brought up the idea of reviewing existing contracts to check on jurisdictions. Reviewing existing agreements that are material to your business is critical. These include financing agreements, as well derivative and insurance arrangements. Law firms say to pay close attention to governing law and jurisdiction clauses, the currency of payment and place of payment clauses, as well as events of default provisions. New York and UK courts will follow their own laws on jurisdictions, but it’s worth reviewing where a contract legally resides.
Systems prep. IT will look into contingency planning/preparedness for Eurozone scenarios from a systems and bank perspective. For example, are banks preparing their payment systems for the possibility of a return of certain discontinued currencies such as the drachma or lira? Or even worse, the dissolution of the Euro? We believe, based on input from our members and other sources that any of these events would likely be disorderly.
Stock buybacks.
It has been a banner year for stock buybacks and given the state of corporate cash and the lack of adequate places to safely park excess, it’s likely there will be a repeat in 2012. We’ll take a look at whether this continues to be a smart strategy for treasurers looking to return value to investors in the new year and beyond.