It was a great pleasure to host more than 200 treasurers to the ACT’s Treasury Forum last month, an annual event produced in alliance with HSBC. This was the first time we had held the forum in-person since 2019, and even then, we had to rearrange the event twice because of industrial action on the trains.
But that made me think. How different would the sessions have been if we had come together in November, as originally planned? The reason I ask this is that there was a degree of optimism in the room. There is now a semblance of political stability, certainly in the UK, though we are always mindful of the war in Ukraine, and the economic outlook, if HSBC’s global economist James Pomeroy’s analysis was correct, is not as bleak as it may have appeared three months ago.
And there is the positive message of China reopening, and the welcome effect that could have on supply chains. I light-heartedly described the UK political landscape as “the gift that keeps giving”, but the reality is that, as treasurers, we look for stability and certainty, things that were in short supply during 2022. But hopefully 2023 will provide a more stable political backdrop.
The Treasury Forum has always made a point of tackling the most topical events as well as the issues that are regarded as the treasurer’s core responsibilities, which was why the subjects we covered included the new world of rising inflation and interest rates, alongside the most pressing issue of our time, climate transition.
We were grateful to HSBC for partnering with the ACT for this event – without such support, these events would not happen. James Mortimer, HSBC’s UK head of corporate banking, succinctly summed up the attributes that make a good treasurer in today’s volatile environment – we need to be nimble, forward-looking and flexible.
Looking back to November and the change in sentiment that we have seen since then serves to emphasise this – being able to change perspectives and advise our businesses appropriately are critical abilities.
Thinking about climate transition, James remarked that five years ago, people would have questioned the relevance of such a topic for the treasurer. But, as James said, the treasurer’s role to navigate climate risk is critical – how climate transition is reflected in KPIs and is embedded in the organisation has never been more important.
So, I left the forum feeling more positive than I was beforehand. We have a little less political volatility, though of course we are conscious that a general election is not too far away, and could, of course, be called sooner than we think. Certainly, it is beginning to feel as if inflation has peaked and could fall quite quickly. Stability is returning to finance – the era of cheap money and quantitative easing may have come to an end, so perhaps this is a return to pre-2008 ‘normality’ – but we are probably better prepared now for black swan events and more comfortable embracing the unknown, as HSBC’s head of UK large corporates Jonathan Graham observed.
Good news and positive stories – that was something that we can all welcome.
Ian Chisholm, group treasurer of Grosvenor, chaired the recent ACT Treasury Forum