Hysan Development is a real estate investment, management and development company based

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1 Financial Risk Management in a Hong Kong Corporate Treasury Hysan s investment property portfolio in Hong Kong comprises over four million square feet of high-quality office, retail and residential space. The company is a regular award winner for best practice and is ranked among the top organisations in the Asia Pacific region for corporate governance. Hysan uses an IT2 treasury management system to support its treasury operation and as a control and reporting tool. The company believes that effective counterparty risk management should be a permanent component of corporate treasury best practice. Introduction David Woo, General Manager, Corporate Treasury, Hysan Development Co. Ltd. Hysan Development is a real estate investment, management and development company based in Hong Kong, operating in the office, retail and residential sectors. Its mission is to build, own and manage quality properties and to provide premium accommodation and services to its occupiers. Hysan s investment property portfolio comprises over four million square feet of high-quality office, retail and residential space. It is the largest commercial landlord in Causeway Bay. Hysan is strongly committed to best practice in corporate governance. As evidence of this commitment, the company has won a number of Best Corporate Governance Disclosure Awards given by the Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants in recent years, including the top Diamond Award (Non- Hang Seng Index Large Market Capitalisation category) in It was also in the Top 5 Corporate Governance in Greater China and Top 5 Corporate Governance in Asia-Pacific categories of the IR Global Rankings The 2008 global financial crisis put the spotlight on treasury operations worldwide. Below is a summary of Hysan s core treasury operations and a review of some of the current and evolving aspects of financial risk management and best practice in corporate governance. Hysan s Daily Treasury Operations Hysan runs a corporate treasury department that performs a range of cash management, asset management and hedging operations in support of its core commercial operations and in compliance with a corporate strategy of keeping risk and return in balance. Its treasury activities are supported by the IT2 treasury management system (TMS), which has been in operation since Hysan introduced a TMS to eliminate unproductive data processing tasks and reduce errors. The company s objective was to improve the quality and timeliness of management and operational reports and to provide complete audit trails for all treasury transactions. These efficiencies enable the treasury team to focus on its duties of financial risk management. Hysan s treasury activities are conducted by a team of six professionals. With the assistance of IT2, duties are clearly segregated and a system of checks and balances is maintained. At a high level, operations are focused on liability management, asset management and the hedging of market risk.

2 Liability Management Hysan s liability management operations are centred on generating dependable finance across the maturity spectrum. The instruments used include loans of various tenors, bank facilities and the issuance of medium-term notes. The company uses IT2 to capture the information and to manage any specific features, such as fixed-rate, floating-rate or zero coupon. Each principal and interest flow can be modified individually to tailor it to meet specific requirements, either by changing the date or amount or adding additional flows where relevant. Asset Management In terms of asset management, Hysan invests in bank deposits both plain and structured and in bonds, equities and bills. The company uses its TMS to derive the expected cash flows from its various investments and to keep track of credit exposures to all counterparties. With this information, the treasury is able to generate budgeting and forecasting reports to determine the cash-flow picture and manage the organisation s liquidity accordingly. Hedging Operations The third core operation of Hysan treasury is hedging market risk, in accordance with the treasury s policy to balance risk and return prudently and effectively. The instruments used for this are interestrate swaps and cross-currency interest-rate swaps. It also uses some foreign exchange forwards and forward-rate agreements for hedging purposes. Figure 1: IT2 Dashboard of Interest Rate Exposure Hedging Management* 40 HSBC s Guide to Cash, Supply Chain and Treasury Management in Asia Pacific 2011

3 Reporting The key management and operational reporting generated from Hysan s TMS includes: a daily maturities report; a hedging report (including cash flow/fair value hedge disclosure); interest accruals; and a credit exposures report. Figure 2: Position Analysis Workbench* Other Treasury Operations Other important treasury operations include treasury accounting and hedge accounting. IT2 s nominal ledger module is linked to the SAP enterprise resource planning system for the export of accounting journals relating to interest accruals, mark-to-market valuations, treasury cash flows and hedge accounting generated by the TMS. HSBC s Guide to Cash, Supply Chain and Treasury Management in Asia Pacific

4 Figure 3: IT2 Integrated Accounting Process Map* Risk Management As Hysan s corporate treasury policy has evolved, a series of risk management processes has been developed and implemented as a central element of managing risk and return in compliance with corporate governance requirements. Hysan currently divides risk analysis into the following categories: counterparty risk; currency risk; country risk; liquidity risk; and price risk. 42 HSBC s Guide to Cash, Supply Chain and Treasury Management in Asia Pacific 2011

5 Counterparty Risk Hysan defines counterparty risk as the risk of the company incurring a loss as a result of the default of a counterparty that has: issued, endorsed or promised to pay on maturity for a security in which Hysan has invested; or accepted a deposit from Hysan; and/or entered into a hedging activity with Hysan with expected future cash flows. The first two occurrences would naturally expose Hysan to principal loss, or at least to delay in repayment, with negative consequences for liquidity. The primary general effect of the third class of default is that it means that a hedge is eliminated, and so the original exposure risk is restored. Other Forms of Risk Hysan also analyses exposures to specific countries, currencies and geographic regions, restricting permitted exposures within the boundaries of treasury policy. It also analyses and manages liquidity risk to ensure that it maintains sufficiently diverse financing sources to assure access to any necessary funding. Finally, the company is of course exposed to market price risk in its bond and equity investments, which it manages in line with the requirements of its treasury policy. Counterparty Risk Management Hysan s treasury policy requires that the total counterparty limit for individual counterparties be set according to the credit ratings assigned to them by the international rating agencies Standard & Poor s, Moody s and Fitch. Company policy defines total counterparty exposure (TCE) as the sum of: original principal of investments (e.g. deposited amount), plus current credit exposure of outstanding hedges (i.e. the positive mark-to-market values), plus potential future credit exposures (possible future exposures based on tenor, notional amount and instrument type). Which produces the formula: TCE = investment + mark-to-market values (positive) + potential future exposures. The Role of Technology As mentioned, Hysan uses an IT2 TMS to support its treasury operation and as a control and reporting tool. The information stored in the database may be used to check limit availability for different counterparties before dealing, to help avoid the risk of actually breaking a counterparty limit. In the course of the deal input workflow for all classes of instrument, the system updates the counterparty exposure automatically. Additionally, the system calculates the mark-to-market value together with the potential future exposure (using a self-set formula). This, together with the investment amount, derives the TCE. The system also acts as a controlling tool: as the counterparty limits are maintained within the system, if a deal is detected that would lead to breaking a limit, a warning signal will be automatically issued and additional authorisation will be needed to process the deal. All of this is logged on the audit trail and can be reported to management. If there is a change in counterparty limits, Hysan s treasury can execute an instant scan to check whether counterparties are above their limits, so enabling the team to decide promptly on required follow-up actions. HSBC s Guide to Cash, Supply Chain and Treasury Management in Asia Pacific

6 Conclusion Analysis of the financial crisis has led some treasuries to review the use of more market-sensitive risk indicators to supplement classic counterparty credit ratings. For example, the US-based Association of Finance Professionals recommends the use of credit default swap (CDS) spreads as an additional, fastmoving tool to monitor changes in counterparty creditworthiness. Although there may be concern about its liquidity and representation, this is something that treasuries with relatively high levels of financial exposure should perhaps be considering in addition to the use of credit ratings. The increased importance and visibility of counterparty risk management will not diminish even as the financial crisis fades into history: effective counterparty risk management is a permanent component of corporate treasury best practice operations. NOTE The data shown in the sample reports and processes in Figures 1, 2 and 3 is for illustrative purposes only and is not related to Hysan s financial activities, exposures or positions. 44 HSBC s Guide to Cash, Supply Chain and Treasury Management in Asia Pacific 2011