Managing Liquidity to Stay Afloat in the Pandemic Economy

Cash may always be king, but in 2020, it was also emperor, czar, and dictator. For companies of all sizes, in almost every industry, carefully managing cash flows was the only way to stay afloat.

Whether a business was attempting to maintain operations as revenues nose-dived, facing down impending debt payments or loan-covenant violations, shoring up its supply chain by helping smaller vendors, or even growing in a market sector boosted by the global shift toward schooling and working from home, liquidity was top of mind all year long.

Some companies responded by simply cutting costs wherever possible. Others built better visibility into and understanding of corporate cash flows. The insights they achieved were critical to their survival in 2020, but they also positioned these businesses for a competitive advantage as the economy recovers.

This year, Treasury & Risk is awarding two Alexander Hamilton Awards in the category Liquidity Management. The winning projects demonstrate the long-term benefits of significantly improving cash management and cash forecasting.

One of the winning organizations, Australian property management company Charter Hall, had more than $5 billion in cash and available undrawn credit facilities. Although the company wasn’t struggling to access adequate liquidity, it lacked easy visibility into cash balances, and managing its available liquidity required a great deal of manual effort. The company built a scalable and highly automated transactional banking structure, augmented a cash pooling arrangement, and developed real-time cash analytics and cash flow forecasting processes.

Holiday Inn Club Vacations faced a different set of challenges in 2020. When the resort industry came grinding to a halt that spring, visibility into cash positions and forecasting of future liquidity needs became vital to the business’s very survival. Holiday Inn Club Vacations rolled out a technology solution that automates cash positioning, forecasting, and transaction reconciliations, greatly improving its ability to continue operations through the pandemic.

Treasury & Risk is hosting a live webcast on June 2, 2021, to recognize both companies. The event will explore how Charter Hall and Holiday Inn Club Vacations identified solutions to their liquidity management challenges, put those solutions in place, and built a much better approach to overseeing corporate funding and cash flows.

We will hear from:

• Sasha De Gracia, director of finance for treasury services with Holiday Inn Club Vacations
• Ian Ko, treasury manager with Charter Hall

In addition to a fascinating breakdown of these award-winning initiatives, the webcast will provide recertification credits from the Association for Financial Professionals (AFP). Register today!