2021 Alexander Hamilton Awards: Liquidity Management
Congratulations to Charter Hall and Holiday Inn Club Vacations!
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 of Liquidity Management:
- Silver Award: For Holiday Inn Club Vacations, visibility into cash positions and forecasting of future liquidity needs became absolutely vital when the resort industry came grinding to a halt in the spring of 2020. The company rolled out a technology solution that automates cash positioning, forecasting, and transaction reconciliations, greatly improving its ability to continue operations through the pandemic.
- Gold Award: Australian property management company Charter Hall had more than $5 billion in cash and available undrawn credit facilities. Like Holiday Inn Club Vacations, Charter Hall 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.
Both projects succeeded as a result of close collaboration among the corporate treasury function, other key internal stakeholders, and external vendors and service providers. “Push your partners to build the functionality you need,” recommends Sasha De Gracia, director of finance–treasury services for Holiday Inn Club Vacations. “Even if you need a capability that isn’t commercially available right now, there’s always a viable workaround that can be created. The end result might not be perfect, but it’s always possible to improve the process.”
Congratulations to Charter Hall and Holiday Inn Club Vacations on their winning initiatives! And thank you to the judges of the competition: Jean-Francois Heitz, former deputy CFO and treasurer of Microsoft; Erik Smolders, former treasurer of Ingram Micro and a vice president in Deloitte’s Global Treasury Advisory Services practice; Craig Jeffery, managing partner of Strategic Treasurer; and Marie Hollein, former president and CEO of Financial Executives International.
Finally, thank you very much to GTreasury, Kyriba, ICD, C2FO, and FinLync for sponsoring the 2021 Alexander Hamilton Awards program.
Treasury & Risk will continue presenting our 2021 Alexander Hamilton Awards in a series of articles and webcasts throughout the year.
- You can learn more about these outstanding projects by viewing the on-demand webcast on this year’s Liquidity Management Awards.
- Also, view the on-demand webcasts recognizing our 2021 Technology Excellence, Treasury Transformation, and Working Capital Management: Partner Impact award winners.