Articles tagged with:
Adam Smith Awards

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  “And the winner is…”

  The winners of the Adam Smith Awards 2013 have now been announced. We are now looking forward to the prestigious Awards Lunch at Plaisterers Hall in the City of London on 20^th June.

  Be the first to comment | May 2013

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  Winners announced

  Winning submissions for the 2013 Adam Smith Awards have now been notified and the full list is available.

  Be the first to comment | May 2013

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  Bank of America Merrill Lynch sponsors 2013 Adam Smith Awards

  Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BofA Merrill) is proud to sponsor the sixth Treasury Today Adam Smith Awards.

  2 Comments | December 2012

• HP’s award winning share repurchase solution: twelve months on…

  Last year, Hewlett-Packard (HP) Treasury submitted an entry based on their implementation of a flexible hybrid share repurchase solution that achieved major cost savings for the company. This solution sealed their place as winner of the ‘One to Watch’ category in the 2011 Adam Smith Awards.

  Be the first to comment | August 2012

• Honeywell's award winning MTM accounting model - what's happening now?

  Honeywell’s pension plans were severely impacted by the global slump in 2008. Like many companies at the time, Honeywell sustained substantial losses to the asset values of its defined benefit pension plans and the lower interest rate environment that followed only served to exacerbate the strain on each plan’s funded status.

  Be the first to comment | August 2012

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  Bharti Airtel Ltd, Highly Commended, Best in Class Benchmarking

  The telecoms industry is one of the newest and fastest growing markets in India but with business conditions that are constantly changing, benchmarking processes are a vital step towards increasing operational efficiency. Bharti Airtel sought to achieve its benchmarking goals by means of establishing a Shared Service Centre (SSC).

  Be the first to comment | August 2012

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  SAP AG, Winner, Best in Class Benchmarking

  SAP was awarded the ‘Best in Class Benchmarking’ accolade in 2012 for overall working capital management. This winning project, led by the company’s global treasury, was set up to improve the way the company used its working capital. The scope of the project was not limited to improving financial data, but was to include other areas, such as remuneration schemes. One of the most important aspects of the project was to increase transparency over the company’s processes. This was done by measuring changes using scalable Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

  Be the first to comment | August 2012

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  Merck, Highly Commended, One to Watch

  Each of Merck’s subsidiaries is responsible for their own guarantee for business transactions embarked upon in their particular locality. Issued by financial institutions, bank guarantees are needed for tender participations, required by customs and tax authorities, and are a prerequisite for any operational business. However, there was no harmonised framework set up for Merck’s 250 subsidiaries; therefore, there was no data on the multiple guarantee portfolios available at group level. Each guarantee was obeying its own local terms and conditions which naturally led to high complexity, no transparency and unnecessary costs across the board. “We wanted to centralise a group-wide bank guarantee scheme,” says Jörg Bermüller, Head of Cash and Risk Management at Merck. The company used this as an opportunity to establish a standardised global process which would also allow potential for improvement.

  Be the first to comment | August 2012

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  Google, Highly Commended, One to Watch

  Every quarter, Google’s accounting team had been downloading excel-based gain/loss reports from State Street custody accounting, filtering and selecting items for more detailed review. Liaising with the treasury risk and portfolio teams, the company’s accounting department then followed up with external managers and their own research to manually identify credit events. This process relied on a relatively arbitrary review threshold and the ability of the various treasury teams to appropriately identify credit-related events. It also depended on accounting and risk professionals to successfully evaluate the impact of those events on observed declines in fair value. These dependencies were costly, not only in terms of time and effort, but also with regard to risk or error and lack of visibility.

  Be the first to comment | August 2012

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  RSA Insurance, Winner, One to Watch

  Inefficient operations and processes left RSA, like many market participants, dealing with the challenges of excessive liquidity, counterparty default risk, and complex reconciliation and settlement processes. With the ability to write premiums in around 140 countries, the company also experienced limitations in the management of currency variations. “The Sorrento initiative is aimed at addressing the systemic issues that arise from these ineffective processes and delivering market-level improvements in operational efficiency, transparency, control and capital efficiency,” explains William McDonnell, RSA’s Group Financial Controller.

  Be the first to comment | August 2012