Tait Communications is a global provider of advanced radio communications systems for mission critical environments in industries such as public safety, utilities, and transportation. In operating across 17 countries, Tait Communications takes a conservative approach to its hedging and FX management strategies but in doing so is still reaping the benefits daily from Hedgebook FX’s risk management system.
Challenge: Managing a large portfolio of forex contracts with mixed derivatives.
Solution: Hedgebook provides reliable information against a wide range of currencies with its FX Exposure Tool enabling accurate management of risk against its treasury policy.
Outcome: An affordable treasury tool that meets the needs of Tait Communications daily FX management.
Global FX portfolio benefits daily from Hedgebook
Tait Communications is a widely recognized global leader and innovator in its field but for its hedging and FX management strategy it takes a conservative approach according to Tax and Treasury Manager, Jeff Situ.
“We don’t do things like interest rate swaps,” explains Jeff. “mostly we work with currency derivatives. To manage this, we use Hedgebook for treasury management on a daily basis and monthly for our reporting – for which Hedgebook saves us hours every month.
“Hedgebook is a useful tool for providing up-to-date information, which is why we have all our derivatives loaded into it. We have found it to be really user friendly and very straight forward – so it’s not rocket science to pick up.”
FX Exposure Tool an upside
Using the FX Exposure Tool is probably 90% of Tait Communications focus in using Hedgebook and it relies heavily on the information provided pretty much every day.
“It creates a nice graph showing the rates and tells you your percentage of exposure as well as timing of the deal,” explains Jeff. “One of the upsides for us is that I can monitor all the percentages of our hedging deals and exposures any time that I want, from anywhere I want, as it is a cloud platform.”
This flexibility extends to working with Tait Communications external advisors, who also have access to its Hedgebook profile.
“Our external advisors have the ability to monitor our deals and scenarios before our monthly treasury catch up, which is really helpful,” says Jeff. “It means they can give us immediate advice in managing to our Treasury Policy and as a conservative risk approach this is important.”
Hedgebook: easy to use and readily affordable
The Tait Communications team has found Hedgebook is a good fit for managing what could be an otherwise complex portfolio.
“Hedgebook is affordable and well meets the needs of our business,” says Jeff. “It is easy to use, and cloud based, with multi-user access, so my team can also go in and do the work needed for us. As a treasury tool it has all you need.”
If you liked what you have learnt in the Tait Communications case study, you might also want to take a look at our FX Exposure Tool and how Hedgebook generally works for Corporates.