Charter Hall is one of Australia's leading fully integrated property groups. The company owns and manages a portfolio of nearly 1,400 commercial properties in the core sectors of office space, industrial and logistics facilities, and retail and social infrastructure locations.

Charter Hall is also an active participant in the property finance market through its investments in these commercial properties. The group has undergone a period of significant growth, in which the value of its funds under management has more than tripled in five years. The group treasury is a centralized corporate function that is responsible for debt and financial risk mitigation strategies, and for originating funding solutions across 40-plus funds.

From a liquidity management perspective, each of Charter Hall's funds has its own balance sheet. Formerly, each fund also had its own statutory trust bank account in every state where it collects rental payments, in accordance with government regulations. "So, for example, if a fund had assets across all seven Australian states, it would have to open bank accounts in each state," says Michael Thomas, treasury operations manager. "In our legacy environment, each fund also established bank accounts at various operating levels, which multiplied the total number of accounts."