International Financial Management P G Apte

1. CHAPTER - 17 Short Term Financial Management in a Multinational Corporation • International Financial Management • P G Apte

2. Short Term Financial Management in a Multinational Corporation

3. Introduction • The essence of short term financial management can be stated as • Minimize the working capital needs consistent with other policies • Raise short term funds at the minimum possible cost and deploy short term cash surpluses at the maximum possible rate of return consistent with the firm's risk preferences and liquidity needs

4. In a multinational context, the added dimensions are the multiplicity of currencies and a much wider array of markets and instruments for raising and deploying funds • Focus on cash management since it is complex because of possibility of raising and deploying cash in many currencies, many locations, and profit opportunities presented by imperfections in international money and foreign exchange markets • Other aspects of short-term financial management such as inventories, receivables/payables management etc. not too different in a multinational context as opposed to a purely domestic firm.

5. Even a purely domestic firm or a firm with imports and exports but no cross-border manufacturing facilities can "internationalize" its cash management if the government of the country permits free capital inflows and outflows • In India as of now, the capital account has not been fully opened up; short-term borrowings are generally discouraged and there are restrictions on parking surplus funds abroad. Also, restrictions on leading-lagging, netting etc.

6. Indian firms have been permitted access to foreign money markets (through domestic banks) for pre-shipment credits for exports and settlement of import payments • The Exchange Earners Foreign Currency (EEFC) account facility is available to all exporters (50% of FC earnings) with special facilities for software firms 100% EOUs (100%). • Cannot access foreign markets for day-to-day cash management • Banks arbitrage between domestic and foreign money markets so that forward margins closely related to interest rate differentials.

7. The passive approach confines itself to minimizing cash needs and currency exposure as well as optimal deployment of cash balances arising out of the firm's operating requirements • The active approach deliberately creates cash positions to profit from perceived market imperfections or the firm's supposedly superior forecasting ability • Again a matter of risk-reward tradeoff.

8. The Management of International Cash Balances • The size of cash balances • The currency denomination • Where these cash balances are located

9. The Size of Cash Balances • The optimal size of the firm’s cash balances depend upon: • The cost of keeping “too much” cash on hand. • i.e. the opportunity costs of holding cash • The cost of not keeping enough cash on hand. • i.e. the trading costs associated with having too little cash • The variability of cash flows.

10. Total cost of holding cash Opportunity Costs Trading costs The Size of Cash Balances Trading costs increase when the firm must sell securities to meet cash needs. Costs in dollars of holding cash The investment income foregone when holding cash. C* Size of cash balance

11. Short Term Borrowing and Investment • The principal dimensions of the borrowing-investment decisions are the instrument, currency, location of the financial center and any tax related issues such as withholding taxes, capital gains taxes versus ordinary income taxes, double tax avoidance treaties etc. • On a covered basis, the choice of currency of borrowing does not matter. (Apart from any tax considerations) • Only when the borrower firm holds views regarding currency movements which are different from market expectations as embodied in the forward rate, does the currency of borrowingbecome an important choice variable

12. Short Term Borrowing and Investment • The Uncovered Interest Parity Condition • This assumes perfect capital mobility, risk neutrality • Ŝe (B/A) : Expected depreciation of currency A vis-à-vis B.

13. Short Term Borrowing and Investment • If speculators are risk averse, a risk premium must be incorporated in the above relationship • This coupled with the interest parity relation implies • F(A/B) is the relevant forward rate and Se(A/B) is the expected future spot rate

14. Short Term Borrowing and Investment • The risk premium can be negative or positive depending upon whether speculators as a group are required to be net short or long in the forward market • The forward rate can on average equal the future spot rate even in the presence of a constant risk premium. However empirical work does not support this.

15. Short Term Borrowing and Investment • Following the same reasoning, on a covered basis the firm should be indifferent between various currencies when it comes to placing temporary excess funds since the covered yields are identical • Considerations such as availability of various investment vehicles- deposits, CDs, CP, treasury bills etc.- and their liquidity may lead to one currency being favored over another • Again tax factors must be taken into account

16. Where should Surplus Cash be Held? • Apart from cost and return considerations, several other factors influence the choice of currencies and locations for holding cash balances • The bid-ask spreads in exchange rate quotations represent transaction costs of converting currencies into one another

17. Where should Surplus Cash be Held? • Minimizing transaction costs: Funds received in currency A, needed later in currency A then hold them in currency A • Liquidity: Funds should be held in a currency in which they are most likely to be needed (not necessarily same as the currency in which they are received) • Political risk • Availability of investment vehicles and their liquidity • Withholding taxes

18. Where should Surplus Cash be Held? • Investing surplus funds • Choose appropriate investment vehicles so as to maximize the interest income while at the same time minimizing currency and credit risks and ensuring sufficient liquidity to meet any unforeseen cash requirements • The major investment vehicles available for short-term placement of funds are short term bank deposits, fixed term money market deposits such as CDs and financial and commercial paper

19. Where should Surplus Cash be Held? • Main considerations in choosing an investment vehicle • Yield • Marketability • Exchange Rate Risk • Price Risk • Transactions Costs • Taxes

20. Where should Surplus Cash be Held? The Minimum Size Problem • Let M denote the minimum size of the investment instrument, S the surplus funds, i the interest on the instrument, d the interest rate on the bank deposit and b the interest rate on borrowing or overdraft • Breakeven size of excess funds is given by Mi - (M-S*)  b = S* d i.e. S* = M[(b-i)/(b-d)]

21. If excess funds on hand exceed S*, money should be borrowed to invest in the money market instrument; otherwise the excess funds should be left in a bank deposit • A similar problem is minimum tenor problem • Financing Short-Term Deficits • Careful handling of short-term deficits can lead to significant savings • Minimize the overall borrowing requirement consistent with the firm's liquidity needs and to fund these at the minimum possible all-in cost

22. One of the cheapest ways of covering short-term deficits is internal funds • A centralized cash management system with cash pooling described below can efficiently allocate internal surpluses • External sources of short-term funding consist of overdraft facilities, fixed term bank loans and advances and instruments like commercial paper, trade and bankers' acceptances

23. Centralized Management Versus Decentralized Cash Management • Centralized cash management has several advantages • Netting • Exposure Management • Cash Pooling (Reduces cash requirements) • Disadvantages of centralized management • Some funds have to be held locally in each subsidiary to meet unforeseen payments

24. Centralized Management Versus Decentralized Cash Management • Local problems in dealing with customers, suppliers etc. • Performance evaluation conflicts • Conflicts of interest can arise if a subsidiary is not wholly owned but a joint venture with minority local stake

25. Exposure Netting: an Example Consider a U.S. MNC with three subsidiaries and the following foreign exchange transactions ($0000s): $20 $30 $40 $10 $35 $10 $30 $40 $25 $60 $20 $30

26. $20 $10 $30 $15 $20 $25 $35 $10 $30 $10 $40 $20 $10 $30 Exposure Netting: an Example Bilateral Netting would reduce the number of foreign exchange transactions by half: $20 $30 $40 $40 $10 $10 $35 $10 $30 $40 $25 $25 $60 $60 $20 $30

27. Netting with Central Depository Some firms use a central depository as a cash pool to facilitate funds mobilization and reduce the chance of misallocated funds. $15 $55 Central depository $40

28. Consider the case of an American multinational with subsidiaries in France, Switzerland and the UK. The parent operates a cash management center. By a specific date each month - say the 15th - all units, the subsidiaries as well as the parent report their receivables and payables among themselves to the CMC. The CMC uses the current spot rates to convert all cash flows into a common denominator viz.US dollars. Figure below shows the positions reported by the various units. The spot rates are assumed to be USD/CHF = 1.5000, GBP/USD = 1.6000 and EUR/USD = 1.2000

29. CHF 1.5m EUR 5m (USD 1m) (USD 6m) GBP 1m CHF 9m (USD 1.6m) (USD 6m) GBP 2m (USD 3.2m)   EUR 2.5m (USD 3m) USD 2m USD 1m GBP 3m (USD 4.8 m) SWITZERLAND FRANCE UK USA (PARENT)

30. The CMC nets out the receivables against payables of each unit and informs the net payers to pay designated amounts to the net receivers. The actual settlements take place at a specified date - say the 25th of the month - for which the net payers acquire the necessary currencies at the spot rate ruling at that time. Any exchange gains or losses are attributed to the individual units. The net positions of the various units, in millions of dollars, are as follows (+ sign indicates inflow and a - sign an outflow): US: + 2 + 1 - 4.8 = -1.8 UK : +4.8 + 3.2 + 1.6 - 2.25 - 6.0 = +1.35 France : + 4.5 + 2.25 - 1.0 - 3.2 - 2.0 = 0.55 Switzerland : + 1.0 + 6.0 - 4.5 - 1.6 - 1.0 = -0.1

31. POSITIONS AND PAYMENTS AFTER NETTING SWITZERLAND 4.4m USD 0.1m 3.5m 0.95m FRANCE UK 1.0m 0.45m 1.35m 2m Net Position Actual Payment USA (PARENT)

32. Netting need not be confined to intra-corporate transactions. Transactions with third parties can also be incorporated. More flexibility can be achieved in cash management if netting can be combined with leading and lagging Payments to cash surplus units can be lagged (with appropriate compensation at the ruling rates of interest) and those to cash deficit units can be accelerated to manage overall cash needs and minimise the use of bank credit lines.

33. Cash Pooling • The CMC can act not only as a netting center but also the repository of all surplus funds. • The CMC can in fact function as a finance company which accepts loans from individual surplus units, makes loans to deficit units and also undertakes market borrowing and investment. • By denominating the intra-corporate loans in the units' currencies, the responsibility for exposure management is entirely transferred to the finance company and the operating subsidiaries can concentrate on their main business viz. production and selling of goods and services. • Cash pooling will also reduce overall cash needs since cash requirements of individual units will not be synchronous.

34. The concept of CMC can be combined with that of a reinvoicing center. Under this system, notionally all subsidiaries sell their output to the reinvoicing center which is located in a low-tax country. The sales are invoiced in the selling company's currency. The reinvoicing center takes title to the goods and in turn sells to third party customers as well as other members of the corporate family which may be production and/or sales subsidiaries. The actual deliveries are made from the selling units to the buying units. For intra-corporate sales, the buying units are invoiced in their respective currencies. Thus the entire currency exposure is transferred to the reinvoicing center which can use matching and pairing to minimise recourse to forward markets or other hedging devices.

35. Cash Transmission • Minimizing the unnecessary costs in the process of collecting cash from debtors and making payments to creditors; the costs arising from the so called "float" • The treasurer must try and minimize the float in the cash collection cycle and take advantage of the float in the cash payment cycle

36. Cash Transmission • The banking systems in various countries have evolved clearing mechanisms which aim at reducing the delays between a payment instruction being received and the payee actually being able to apply the funds. The CHIPS in the US, CHAPS in the UK are examples of such systems. SWIFT is an electronic network for cross-border funds transfers. A treasurer operating in a multinational framework needs a good working knowledge of these systems. Similarly banks around the world offer various facilities to their clients to speed up funds transfers. Direct debits, lock-box facilities and other such devices can help in cutting down these delays often enabling realization of value the same day.

37. An LP Formulation of Netting

38. ____________________________________________________ Unit Total Receivables Total Payables Net ____________________________________________________ CANADA 20.80 28.05 -7.25 UK 14.75 21.80 -7.05GERMANY 30.00 9.90 +20.10 HOLLAND 15.40 13.50 +1.90 S.KOREA 10.90 25.80 -14.90 US 28.60 21.40 +7.20 _____________________________________________________

40. Minimise: (0.001X1 + 0.001X2 + 0.0012X3 + 0.0015X4 + 0.0015X5 + 0.001X6 + 0.0018X7 + 0.0018X8 + 0.0016X9) .. Minimise total cost of funds transfer Subject to the constraints : X1 + X2 + X3 = 7.05 Total payments from UK X4 + X5 + X6 = 7.25 Total payments from Canada X7 + X8 + X9 = 14.90 Total payments from S.Korea X1 + X4 + X7 = 20.10 Total payments to Germany X2 + X5 + X8 = 1.90 Total payments to Holland X3 + X6 + X9 = 7.20 Total payments to US. A simple transportation problem.

41. Optimum Funds Transfers

42. Transfer Pricing & Related Issues • The Transfer Price is the price that for accounting purposes, is assigned to goods and services flowing from one division of a firm to another division. • Controversial even for a domestic firm. • Consider the example of a firm that has one division that mills lumber and another that makes furniture. The transfer price of the lumber is a political as well as economic and accounting issue.

43. Transfer Pricing & Related Issues • For MNC, there exists the added complications of: • Differences in tax rates. • Import duties and quotas. • Exchange rate restrictions on the part of the host country. • Most countries have regulations controlling transfer pricing. • The tax code may require transfer prices to be arms length prices.

44. Arms Length Price • A price that a willing seller would charge a willing unrelated buyer. • Three methods for estimating an arms length price • Comparable uncontrolled price. • Resale price: the price at which the good is resold by the affiliate is reduced by overhead and profit. • Cost-plus approach: an appropriate profit is added to the cost of the manufacturing affiliate.

45. Blocked Funds • A form of political risk is the risk that the foreign government may impose exchange restrictions on its own currency. • Several methods exist for moving blocked funds: • Transfer pricing • Unbundling services • Parallel and back-to-back loans • Swaps

46. Blocked Funds • Additional strategies for unblocking funds: • Direct negotiation • Export creation • Using the blocked funds to buy goods and services for the MNC. • For example, use the National Airlines of the host country for travel of executives of the MNC, and pay for the tickets with the blocked funds. • Transfer local expatriates from home payroll to the local subsidiaries payroll.

47. Summary • Within the constraints imposed by the exchange control and other regulations, a MNC has access to a much wider menu of funding avenues and investment vehicles for short-term funds management • Apart from funding and investment avenues, the mechanics of efficient cash transmission and configuration of bank accounts is an important aspect of cash management in a MNC • The decision to centralize cash management in a separate cash management center needs to be carefully evaluated