Winners announced for the EuroFinance Treasury Excellence Awards 2023

Unilever, Africa Airtel, Bristol Myers Squibb and Siemens Gamesa named as the winners and IATA Pay were given a special commendation for the annual awards recognised as the benchmark for treasury excellence globally.

The winning companies will present case studies of their projects on stage at the 32nd EuroFinance International Treasury Management event in Barcelona from Sept 27th-29th.

London – EuroFinance has unveiled the winners of the annual EuroFinance Treasury Excellence Awards 2023 recognised as the benchmark for treasury excellence globally.

Each year, the theme changes to reflect the key trends that have emerged in treasury over 12 months. This year’s winners have been awarded in 4 categories; Mastering strategic change, Digital transformation, Technology implementation and Risk management and resilience.

“This year’s record number of submissions were an impressive line-up of corporate treasury teams pushing the boundaries of the industry in very challenging times” says Emma West, Managing Director at EuroFinance. “We are delighted to announce the winners, all notable for their relentless drive to create valuable solutions that respond to real business needs. We look forward to highlighting their accomplishments at our flagship International Treasury Management event in September where each winning company will present a case study of their initiative.”

Specially commended for industry-wide digital transformation: IATA Pay

IATA Pay, developed by the International Air Transport Association, is a game-changing, global account-to-account payment solution leveraging instant payments and open banking to modernise and optimise payment processes within the airline industry.

Digital transformation winner: Unilever

Unilever, one of the world’s largest consumer goods companies, demonstrated remarkable foresight by improving its cash forecasting capabilities in preparation for the rising interest rate environment. Despite its global presence, Unilever standardised key processes throughout the organisation, improving the accuracy and timeliness of data used for forecasting future cash positions.

Technology implementation winner: Siemens Gamesa

In the face of a complex system landscape brought about by a simultaneous carve-out and merger, Siemens Gamesa embarked on an ambitious project to construct a new payment system. The company faced significant challenges, including the need to unify two disparate systems. The goal was to harmonise these systems, automate processes, increase visibility, and ensure compliance and security, all within a tight timeline to avoid breaching the merger contract and incurring penalty fees.

Technology implementation highly commended: SKF Group

Mastering strategic change winner: Airtel Africa

Airtel Africa, an integrated telecom provider operating in 14 frontier markets, has a two-pronged approach to growing its business: Telecom and Mobile Money. Despite high potential for growth in both areas, Airtel Africa faces challenges including rising global interest rates, macroeconomic volatility, lack of depth in local financial markets limited funding sources, and foreign exchange (FX) convertibility issues, all of which necessitate stronger investment and strategic solutions to continue to support stronger investments in its vision to transform lives through digital and financial inclusion in the continent.

To overcome these challenges, Airtel Africa’s treasury team acts as a strategic thought leader, implementing key strategies such as targeted financing solutions in the operating entities with local banks and Development Finance Institutions, optimisation of capital structures within the Group, and innovative liquidity management solutions. These solutions aim to provide long-term financing in fixed interest rates and local currency, mitigate FX risk, replace foreign currency debt with local currency debt, and safeguard against trapped cash situations.

Risk and resilience winner: Bristol Myers Squibb

2022 was marked by a volatile macro-economic environment due to rising interest rates, inflation and geopolitical instability. The New Jersey-based drugmaker, Bristol Myers Squibb’s (BMS) Treasury team turned challenges into opportunities and successfully generated profits and positive cash flows. In addition, a significant challenge also came from its acquisition of Celgene Corporation in 2019, which led to the complex integration of two Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems and doubled the number of legal entities, significantly increasing risks, particularly the balance sheet and cash flow foreign exchange (FX) risk.

Faced with these complexities and increased financial risk from currency volatility and rising cost of debt, BMS made various strategic moves that included a $6B debt restructuring, acceleration of the 2023 cash flow hedging program, implementation of a cross-currency swap strategy for six currencies and automation of processes.

Risk and resilience highly commended: Primetals Technologies

The specially commended and winning companies will present case studies on their award winning initiatives at the 32nd annual EuroFinance International Treasury Management gathering more than 2000 treasury professionals from September 27th-29th in Barcelona.