Corporate treasurers are finding that funding remains expensive and hard to obtain, despite recent stirrings of activity in the capital markets. A panel of treasurers at a Finance & Treasury Association conference in Sydney agreed that their best option in the medium term was to manage their cash flow better.
Treasurers talked about how they reduced the cost of working capital; reduced their debt load by harvesting idle cash; building better cash flow forecasting systems and rationalising banking relationships
Caltex Australia assistant treasurer Jonathon Hirst said there were encouraging signs in the corporate debt and securitisation markets, but for companies needing to refinance or find new debt capital the situation was still volatile and uncertain.