Addressing the trifecta of events now impacting corporate treasury—the proposal under Section 385 of the Internal Revenue code, money market fund (MMF) reform, and Brexit—Treasury Strategies’ recent cash management webinar painted a world of risk and extra work for corporate treasury executives.
On the 385 front, consultancy Treasury Strategies estimates that because the proposed rule will require companies to reduce their level of intercompany lending, the average company will have to hold an additional five days of cash flow on its balance sheet. Anthony Carfang, partner and director at Treasury Strategies, now a part of Novantas, said that as a result, Fortune 500 companies alone will have to hold an additional $230 billion in stranded cash on their balance sheets.
“That is, they’re going to have to raise an additional $230 billion to supplement the inter-company lending they might have otherwise done,” he said.
He also noted that coverage of the issue has largely focused on multinational corporations (MNCs), since a goal of the proposal is to reduce incentives for inversions, in which a US company changes its domicile to a low-tax jurisdiction and engages in earnings stripping to lower the tax bill of “US subsidiaries.” However, language in the proposal’s preamble says it applies to “purported indebtedness issued to certain related parties, without regard to whether the parties are domestic or foreign.”
In other words, Mr. Carfang said, all companies, including purely domestic companies, whose loans between subsidiaries meet one of three circumstances would see that debt reclassified as equity. In addition, the proposed rules would apply to any company whose revenue exceeds $50 million or total assets exceed $100 million, cutting deep into the middle market.
So far, US Treasury officials have show little sign of wavering, even after a rush of comment letters submitted by July 7 that criticized the proposed rule in dire terms. Mr. Carfang said the US Treasury usually is required to do a cost-benefit analysis. However, despite the rule’s onerous transaction monitoring and documentation requirements, as well as significant changes to many companies cash management strategies to avoid penalties, the agency estimates most companies will require only 35 hours annually to ensure compliance, at a cost of $18 an hour.
“The Treasury is basically saying we don’t care what you have to do, and we’re going to totally discount that,” Mr. Carfang said, adding, “That basically tells us Treasury is taking a hard line here.”
Market observers anticipate Treasury finalizing the rule as early as September, at which point it will become effective for inter-company loans going originated after April 4, when the proposal was issued.
Deborah Cunningham, chief investment officer global money markets at Federated Investors, addressed the money market fund (MMF) reform. An issue for corporates is prime institutional MMFs will have to switch to variable net asset values (NAVs) by October 14, 2016 and most will adopt multiple strike prices. Federated, she said, will provide a multi-strike model that will price funds at 8 a.m., 11 a.m. and 3 p.m., as well as a single-strike model requested by intermediary customers that will price funds at 3 p.m.
For corporates that have been accustomed to purchasing or redeeming shares between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m., under the new rules they’ll have to pursue those transactions before 3 p.m. However, Ms. Cunningham said, vendors, accountants and custodians have already shrunk the processing time to between 1.5 and 2.5 hours, compared to the traditional overnight.
“Our expectation is that as they get used to this process, the timeframe for [processing] will get shorter and we’ll be able to move that last NAV strike” to later in the day,” she said.
Roger Merritt said that in aggregate approximately $300 billion has moved out of prime institutional MMFs to government MMFs, which retain a fixed NAV, but the bulk of that shift has been funds with fixed NAVs converting to floating.
“More recently, we’ve seen just under $100 billion move out of prime institutional funds, so we’re starting to see corporate treasuries and other prime investors starting to vote with their feet,” Mr. Merritt said.
Brett Friedman, director at Novantas, noted that financial markets have calmed following the UK’s Brexit vote, but the underlying, long-term issues remain. “Although market is calm now, there will likely be extreme spikes in volatility as new problems come and go,” he said.
Stephen Baseby, associate policy & technical director, Association of Corporate Treasurers, also pointed to French elections next year and the notion of “Frexit” already being floated, as well as anti-EU or anti-euro sentiments emerging in countries such as Spain and Italy. “There’s this concern that the euro and the EU itself are not going to remain stable,” Mr. Baseby said. “What this means for corporate treasurers will be periods of extreme volatility, which they will have to manage on a day-to-day basis.”