Citi Client Casebook Middle East and Africa 2022

Liquidity and Working Capital 22 MultiChoice Group Limited Working from home not a barrier to this progressive treasury team MultiChoice is Africa’s leading entertainment company, they create and secure the rights to phenomenal content from all over the world. Their entertainment platforms — DStv, GOtv, Showmax and DStv Now — are a hub for approximately 20.9 million people across 50 countries. Through Irdeto, they are a world leader in digital platform security for video entertainment, video games, connected transport and IoT connected industries. The Challenge The overarching challenge experienced by Jan Beukes, Group Treasurer was that he and his team had a list of projects to deliver whilst everybody was working from home as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. His team continues to work from home so the successful implementation of the many projects that have been delivered is a marvellous achievement. The Solution Beukes and his team have been extremely productive as the following projects demonstrate. They facilitated funding of US$81m in MultiChoice Group Limited’s M&A cycle, allowing the successful implementation of a minority stake investment. They also raised and implemented a R1.5bn (US$100m) working capital facility for MultiChoice Group Limited within just five weeks which was used for key working capital cash flows. The team implemented automated FX confirmations incorporating FX flows/transactions from 13 different banking partners in South Africa, Rest of Africa and the Netherlands. “We also set up a notional interest pool and target balancing structure for our technology company, Irdeto BV headquartered in the Netherlands optimising interest yield across ten different countries and nine currencies,” explains Beukes. They raised and implemented a US$285m bank guarantee structure for the group, facilitating further working capital flows and commitments. Beukes also addressed his staff development with the introduction of his group treasury rotational staff structure. The structure allows for an annual rotation between the two Senior Treasury Analysts (who report to Beukes), while the two supporting staff members within the Senior Treasury Analysts’ team rotates every two years. This ensures that the entire team gets exposure to all functional treasury areas over time which is often difficult in traditional treasury team structures. Other projects delivered include FX dashboards to aid the company’s hedging activities, the integration of several external processes and systems into the treasury management system (TMS) and a custom-built hedge accounting solution within the TMS whereby executed trades are matched to FX exposure items and IFRS 9 Hedge Accounting documentation is produced, populated and related journals are provided for upload into SAP. Further developments were also made to the company’s cash forecasting system which provides significant insight into variances and understanding forecasted flows in great detail. The Results The key takeaway from these solutions is that nothing is impossible. As with many other teams, working from home brought significant challenges but this did not deter Beukes and his team from achieving these key initiatives during the past 12 months. There has been a significant drive within the treasury team to automate via value-adding technologies, thereby creating additional capacity and efficiencies within the team. The efficiencies gained from these actions provides them more time to engage with their business partners, get more regular updates on any of their key needs/requirements and where they as a treasury team can add value. This results in group treasury functioning as a strategic and value add Overall Winner: Best in Class Treasury Solution in Africa Source: This was first published by Treasury Today Group