Treasury advisory services

• material change in activities, assets and liabilities, or the sensitivity of financial market risks
• financial stress or under performance due to non-recognition or non-management of financial risks in the past
• unacceptable volatility of financial performance for stakeholders
• public offering, changes in ownership or owners' representatives (the Board of Directors)
• establishment of a new company requiring rigorous financial policies
• a challenge to the status-quo methods of managing financial risks by new management or directors
• corporate treasury best practice health-check and compliance to governance rules and guidelines
• a treasury or risk management policy is required to be externally and independently reviewed.

PwC provides advice around the management and reporting of your cash, working capital and core debt and transactional banking options. Our services include:

• analysing seasonal debt patterns and clearly articulating cash flow and differences in intra-month working capital timing 
• preparing seasonal working capital analysis, as well as shadow credit rating work to assist with the organisation's liquidity and debt funding facility structure and design, supporting pricing discussions with lenders
• preparing and writing a formal, comprehensive Request for Proposal (RFP) – including key financial metrics, working capital and transactional banking requirements – inviting a selection of banks to submit a credit-approved debt-funding and transactional banking offer
• assessing and prioritising RFP responses, helping clients make stronger, informed decisions. Some factors we look at include each banks' preferred commitment to the bank debt offering, their core capabilities, service breadth, shareholder banking offerings, debt pricing, security, covenants, tenors, foreign exchange transactional servicing, vendor financing, as well as important criteria, such as each banks' experience with transactional banking and merchant services – and more.

PwC delivers independent and behind the scenes debt management advice – regardless of the borrower's experience in debt raising, refinancing or restructuring – to provide reassurance to the Board of Directors that appropriate actions have been taken. Our scope of services are broad, though they include:

• introduction to new lender groups and information on appropriate and alternative borrowing options
• independent and external advice on the borrower’s long-term strategic debt path
• practical evaluation of what pricing and lender demand the borrower can command in the marketplace
• strategy and tactics for conducting tenders from lenders or debt-issue arrangers accurate, comprehensive evaluation of lenders proposals and backroom assistance to negotiations
• benchmarking pricing and terms to peer borrowers
• advice on documentation and security 
• advice on sustainable capital management, including balance sheet gearing reviews, determining debt-sizing and optimising shareholder returns
• support in structured financing, securitisation, project financing, and senior and mezzanine debt
• capital management strategies and policies
• evaluation of credit metrics and providing shadow credit-rating opinions
• advisory and arrangement roles for debt capital market issues
• global and domestic debt market analysis and insights
• US Private Placement debt market agent capability.

We support organisations in managing their FX risks (also known as exchange rate risk or currency risk) to deliver more opportunities when you operate or compete on the international stage. Our easy-to-use tool Treasury Intelligence can help you manage your FX risk in real-time. Find out more here.

Our experts can provide:

• an understanding of the materiality and sensitivity of foreign exchange rate movements and how they affect profit margins and stakeholder value – including balance sheet translation, foreign earnings, capex, direct transactional (exports and imports), indirect transactional and enterprise economic foreign exchange risk
• analysis and modelling FX hedging programmes and policies bespoke your business
• insight on current and future foreign exchange market trends and developments, communicated in a straightforward and concise way
• proactive and timely foreign exchange hedging recommendations
• financial models to simulate and stress-test alternative foreign exchange hedging policies, helping to optimise them in terms of profit outcomes, currency ranges, averages, volatility and mark-to-market valuation positions
• assistance to enhance your decision making around FX risk management to achieve your financial and company objectives, including out-performance of your agreed benchmarks
• economic and financial market information and intelligence to help with foreign exchange risk management decisions
• specific foreign exchange hedging strategies and instruments designed to meet your objectives, as well as the market entry tactics to execute on them 
• illustrative Board reporting.

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Interest Rate risk is constantly changing and materially impacts most businesses. Our team looks at the reasons behind that change by monitoring and acting on present or future interest rate risks. More specifically, we:

• assess the sensitivity and materiality of interest rate movements on profitability, with implications for stakeholder value
• simulate and stress-test alternative interest rate hedging policies by constructing financial models, helping to determine optimal hedging policies in terms of their profit outcomes, weighted average cost of funds, volatility and mark-to-market valuation positions
• assist and enhance your decision making around interest rate risk management to achieve your  financial objectives, including out-performance of agreed benchmarks
• create a disciplined framework and forum to address, analyse or action interest rate risk exposures and hedging strategies
• proactively design and recommend specific hedging strategies to achieve your hedging objectives, including market tactics to execute and use recommended hedging instruments
• provide analysis and determination of ideal hedging instruments – such as the use of interest rate swaps, options, swaptions and collars
• deliver economic and financial market information and intelligence to help decision making and management of interest rate risk
• act as a sounding board and test for interest rate strategies and products to determine their efficiency, effectiveness and robustness against future market conditions
• assist management in the design of relevant treasury reporting metrics.

PwC has a team of global experts dealing with commodity risk-management issues related to agriculture and dairy, oil and gas, electricity, metals, carbon and more. We offer a variety of specialist services to help support your priorities, such as:

• risk identification, measurement and analytics
• developing clear objectives for commodity risk management and trading, aligned with risk capacity and appetite
• developing clear policies and strategies for commodity trading and risk management
• re-aligning policies and strategies with market changes and new developments
• designing and implementing of organisation, processes and internal controls
• improving the effectiveness and efficiency of trading execution
• supporting management in the design of governance and control framework
• supporting the internal audit of trading activities
• training for management, internal audit and other employees.

PwC has a long history working to ensure our clients find additional value in cash and fixed-income investments. We can help you by:

• reviewing and designing appropriate Investment Policy Statements
• advising on risk, reward and governance trade-offs
• recommending and advising on appropriate cash and fixed-income investments
• reviewing and performance benchmarking current cash and fixed-interest policies and portfolios
• providing ongoing advice and strategies on New Zealand cash and fixed-income portfolios
• reviewing appropriate cash and fixed-income instruments, interest rate and maturity limits, credit rating, and counterparty risk parameters.

When it comes to asset and liability risk, PwC provides a range of specialised services to suit, which include:

• establishing bank or finance company operations
• independently reviewing treasury management policy and practices 
• setting up and reviewing balance sheet maturity, interest rate gap and financial assumptions
• interest rate sensitivity analysis 
• net income and risk financial modelling 
• liquidity, funding and interest rate strategy advice 
• asset liability management (ALM) education and training.

To ensure your business and people are as good as they can be when it comes to treasury management, we deliver training, courses and workshops where they can learn from a panel of expert treasury practitioners. We provide:

• insights into best practice liquidity, debt, investment and financial market risk management within a corporate treasury management environment
• practical workshops on interest and foreign exchange rate policy design and strategy
• courses on unique treasury performance measurement and reporting approaches.