Editorial

Efficiency and resilience

Welcome to our first edition of 2025!

We kick off the year with our annual feature exploring the issues you are most focused on in the year ahead and observe budgetary pressures and the uncertain macroeconomic outlook front-of-mind. But treasury teams are also leaning into emerging technologies and building technical skills within their teams to increase efficiency and resilience.

After a challenging few years characterised by the absence of headline-grabbing deals, market experts are confident that M&A dealmaking will pick up significantly across Asia in 2025. The last few years have provided slim pickings for merger and acquisition specialists in APAC, but digital and sustainable infrastructure deals are seen driving activity in the year ahead.

India will also be a key focus of M&A and IPO activity. We capture the growing treasury function at India’s leading corporates in this edition’s Question Answered where Tata Communications’ Nishith Agarwal and APAR Industries’ Sanjay Rohit share their stories on treasury growth and prowess in the region.

Lessons from India are front of mind for fast-growing regional corporates in the Middle East increasingly centralising their treasury operations and tapping the benefits of an IHB. Rewards include improved cash and liquidity management and a rationalised banking stack in an iterative process that doesn’t yet span hedging, FX and interest rate risk management or trade finance transactions. Separately we find that advances in digitisation and recognition of the value of addressing specific local issues promptly are encouraging multinational companies to take a closer look at the merits of regional treasury centres.

Finally, Amit Grover shares his experiences of building a regional treasury from scratch following GE’s recent separation into three standalone companies. He reflects on the importance of gaining recognition for treasury’s achievements through industry initiatives such as the Adam Smith Awards Asia programme and the most appealing aspects of treasury. For him this is the strategic and dynamic nature of the profession, as well as its importance to the company as a whole.

“Treasury constantly keeps you engaged with new challenges, and constantly pushes you to find innovative solutions,” he says. “What’s more, treasury sits at the heart of the organisation – the things you do in treasury are so critical that it’s practically impossible for the organisation to function without them.”