Welcome to FINANCE Magazine’s Guide to Corporate Banking & Treasury 2006
For details of the FINANCE Guide to Corporate Banking & Treasury 2007 - please click here.
The Guide is a summary of the themes which are covered each month in FINANCE magazine, and www.finance-magazine.com, and during 2006, we will be updating the ideas contained in the Guide month by month with special features, news, reports, and treasury profiles.
With the European Central Bank committed to raising interest rates, 2006 is set to be a time of change for Ireland’s corporate treasurers, and a number of articles in the guide examine how they can prepare for this changing environment, including advice on new interest rate hedging products. Our writers also look at how, across the ocean, Ben Bernanke, will get on stepping into the formidable Alan Greenspan’s shoes in setting interest rates in the US.
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Corporate Treasury Guide 2006: Benign interest rate environment puts treasurers in driving seat
Historically low European interest rates, combined with a strong appetite by banks to provide debt, and increasing competition in the marketplace, has provided a very favourable funding environment for Ireland’s corporate treasurers, allowing them to dictate the terms and the pricing of their loans. Elsewhere, treasurers have been benefiting from increasingly sophisticated structured products and hedging strategies to reduce risk, and boost return. |
Where next for the corporate/bank relationship?
The relationship between the banker and the corporate client has changed significantly over the last 10 years and will continue to evolve and change in the future. Ciaran Kane analyses some of the factors responsible for those changes and examines the likely key influences in the year ahead. |
Increasing demand for more innovative ways of hedging amongst Irish corporates
With ‘caps’ and ‘collars’ now considered by Irish corporates to be too ‘vanilla’, corporates are now looking at new options when looking to hedge their interest rate risk, writes LESLIE COSGROVE, who illustrates how corporates can benefit from ‘window swaps’ and ‘capped floating swaps’ to manage their debt interest rate risk. |
Bringing a flexible approach to treasury
Ulster Bank has transformed its financial markets/treasury division over the past three years.
BARRY MCCALL reports on Ulster Bank’s ‘global reach, local delivery’ approach. |
Significant fall in the dollar is the biggest threat facing Ireland
The risk of a very significant fall in the US dollar against other major currencies constitutes the single biggest threat to the Irish and European economies this year writes JOHN BEGGS. However, while he envisages some weakness in the dollar this year, its decline against the euro is likely to be limited to below the $1.30 level, he says. Overall, he is very optimistic about the outlook for the economy. |
The Bernanke Fed - the challenge of protecting the Greenspan legacy
John Coffey and Richard Iley assess how Ben Bernanke, Alan Greenspan’s successor as chairman of the US Federal Reserve, will control the US economy, once he steps into ‘the most successful central banker in history’s’ shoes on March 28th. |
Delivering Ireland’s infrastructure – PPPs pick up the pace
NIALL QUINN examines the progress of Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) as they seek to become an integral part of the delivery mechanism for Ireland’s infrastructure deficit. |
Regulatory compliance risk management emerges as key element of treasurer's job
Today’s corporate treasurer not only has to manage interest rate, foreign exchange, inflation, commodity and cash/financing risk, they now also have the challenge of dealing with regulatory compliance risk, writes the new chairman of the Irish Association of Corporate Treasurers, Andrew Glover. |
The growth of alternative treasury management solutions
While conventional treasury management products are well established, 2005 saw a range of hitherto more alternative solutions become more commonplace. Niall O’Sullivan and Paul Harris review three evolving areas. |
Treasury outsourcing is here to stay
ABN Amro’s recent withdrawal in Dublin from the treasury outsourcing market raises questions about this service area, writes Pat Leavy. However, he adds that empirical evidence suggests that there is a steady flow of new projects at least on a par with recent years, and that there is still latent demand for this capability which will increase as the concept becomes more readily established over time. |
Syndicated loans 2005: that was the year that was
The syndicated loan market in 2005 once again confirmed its status as Europe’s No.1 source of debt capital raising. ROBERT ROUGHAN looks into the reasons behind such significant growth, and examines opportunities in the year ahead. |
Competitive funding environment in 2006 will be good news for treasurers
Last year proved to be an interesting, and in some cases rewarding, year for Irish corporates in terms of bank and debt funding. John Cronin takes a look back at some of the significant features of the debt markets during the last 12 months. |
Property securitisation – the next big play
With the market more than doubling in 2005, Henry Cleary outlines the function of commercial mortage-backed securities (CMBS), showing that CMBS are a flexible, inexpensive alternative form of financing, which are being used more and more by Irish investors to fund property transactions. |
