By Ted Howard
The July issue of iTreasurer covers a lot of ground in terms of everything treasury, but it also shows how the role of treasurer can be stretched to help foster programs that help people get the products they need when they need them.
Take pharmaceuticals, for instance. At NeuGroup’s second meeting of its Life Sciences Treasurers’ Peer Group (LSTPG), the group heard from a member whose company has created a new finance role entirely focused on affordability. According to the presentation, the role is one step in the company’s effort to increase access to its drugs and their affordability. “Finance leaders need to look across the health care system’s flow of funds for opportunities to increase affordability and access that exist only in discrete channels,” writes the article’s author, NeuGroup founder Joseph Neu. Who better to do that than treasury?
In July’s Anticipated Exposures, we take a look at how states are reinforcing data privacy requirements seen in established rules like Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation. There’s also an article about how companies need to take more action to mitigate the damage done by phishing scams where bad actors impersonate trusted contacts, by malware used to obtain data and extort ransom, and by other forms of hacking.
Contributing editor Antony Michels discusses how investments in sustainable investments are not just feel-good (look good) money pits. Far from it, the good news is that corporate investors don’t necessarily have to sacrifice expected returns or yield when creating more sustainable portfolios, or more specifically, environmental, social and governance (ESG) portfolios. HSBC, which sponsored a recent NeuGroup Treasury Investment Managers’ Peer group, presented a hypothetical ESG portfolio with sector and industry weightings, overall credit rating and duration comparable to an investment-grade benchmark. Turns out the ESG portfolio actually beat the benchmark.
iTreasurer provides insights from NeuGroup’s Corporate ERM Group’s spring meeting, including stories on whether corporate board meetings give ERM enough time to provide directors with a sense of all the risks the company faces and how COSO has created guidance for companies that want to know how ESG risks fit into their enterprise risk management initiatives. Another story looks at how corporate risk appetites are incomplete without considering upsides for those risks that aren’t company killers. Other stories look at getting ahead of future surprises and threats with cross-functional brainstorming; how reputation is a difficult and amorphous risk for a company to get its hands around; and how companies are using videos to communicate ERM’s mission.
We talk about Financial Accounting Standards Board’s efforts to clear up confusion around its recent hedge-accounting standard.
We discuss how a consortium of banks is seeking to extend trade finance to small and midsize enterprises (SMEs) in greater need of the financial flexibility, with the April launch of the Trade Finance Distribution Initiative (TFDI).
Finally, we analyze how corporate cash investors remain risk-averse amid shifts in the interest-rate outlook and repatriation flows.