Treasury Outlook with Treasury Wine Estates´ Bijan Taghian
Bijan Taghian, Treasury Manager at Treasury Wine Estates, shares views and visions in an interview with Reval.
1) What was the most challenging project in your treasury department in 2013?
Following the demerger with Fosters in May 2011, Treasury Wine Estates became a stand-alone ASX-listed company. Therefore, we focused on implementing a long-term funding strategy for our relatively new group in 2013.
Our treasury team was challenged to establish new sources of debt, diversify our sources of funding, create a longer yield curve, establish new bank facilities, issue a bond in the US, and establish common funding terms for the group.
2) What is the biggest risk treasury is facing today? How are you mitigating this risk?
Today, treasury is facing a variety of risks such as financial market, foreign exchange, interest rate, commodity, liquidity and credit risk. Those risks are closely related to each other and equally important to manage.
We conducted a review of treasury policy to refine it to today´s market environment and establish best practices to protect our company from those risks.
3) What will be the biggest drivers for change in treasury in 2014?
Previously, we only managed financial market risk with Reval´s Treasury and Risk Management (TRM) solution, but we decided to deepen our use of the solution and implement it as group-wide treasury system. Leveraging the technology to its full scope will enable us to utilise cash more efficiently and better support our business operations on a day-to-day basis.
4) Which strategic initiatives will you focus on in 2014? How will technology support you to reach your goals?
Our goal is to gain global oversight on cash, liquidity and risk, so treasury will focus on integrating our treasury and risk workflows on Reval’s single platform. . The solution will not only be used in central treasury, but it will also be rolled out to our entities around the globe.
5) What technological innovations would help you to evolve your treasury function in the next 3 years?
Having the right technology infrastructure in place can really evolve how we function as a business. In my opinion, all the technology needed is already there, but it´s not as integrated as it should be. Connecting our treasury system with the ERP system and the bank platforms, would make treasury much more efficient, and it would free up resources for the more value-added analyses senior management is already asking for. With the global roll-out of Reval, we are taking the first step this year.