Basic Strategy for Hedging Translation Exposure
Funds adjustment involves altering either the amounts or the currencies (or both) of the planned cash flows of the parent or its subsidiaries to reduce the firm’s local currency accounting exposure. If an LC devaluation is anticipated, direct funds adjustment methods include pricing exports in hard currencies and imports in the local currency, investing in hard currency securities, and replacing hard currency borrowings with local currency loans. The indirect methods, which are elaborated upon in Chapter 20, include adjusting transfer prices on the sale of goods between affiliates; speeding up the payment of dividends, fees, and royalties; and adjusting the leads and lags of intersubsidiary accounts. The last method, which is the one most frequently used by multinationals, involves speeding up the payment of intersubsidiary accounts payable and delaying the collection of intersubsidiary accounts receivable. These hedging procedures for devaluations would be reversed for revaluations (see Exhibit 10.3, p. 366).
Some of these techniques or tools may require considerable lead time, and—as is the case with a transfer price—once they are introduced, they cannot easily be changed. In addition, techniques such as transfer price, fee and royalty, and dividend flow adjustments fall into the realm of corporate policy and are not usually under the treasurer’s control, although this situation may be changing. It is, therefore, incumbent on the treasurer to educate other decision makers about the impact of these tools on the costs and management of corporate exposure.
Although entering forward contracts is the most popular coverage technique, the leading and lagging of payables and receivables is almost as important. For those countries in which a formal market in LC forward contracts does not exist, leading and lagging and LC borrowing are the most important techniques. The bulk of international business, however, is conducted in those few currencies for which forward markets do exist.
Forward contracts can reduce a firm’s translation exposure by creating an offsetting asset or liability in the foreign currency. For example, suppose that IBM U.K. has translation exposure of £40 million (i.e., sterling assets exceed sterling liabilities by that amount). IBM U.K. can eliminate its entire translation exposure by selling £40 million forward. Any loss (gain) on its translation exposure will then be offset by a corresponding gain (loss) on its forward contract. Note, however, that the gain (or loss) on the forward contract is of a cash-flow nature and is netted against an unrealized translation loss (or gain).
Selecting convenient (less risky) currencies for invoicing exports and imports and adjusting transfer prices are two techniques that are less frequently used, perhaps because of constraints on their use. It is often difficult, for instance, to make a customer or supplier accept billing in a particular currency.
Exposure netting is an additional exchange-management technique that is available to multinational firms with positions in more than one foreign currency or with offsetting positions in the same currency. As defined earlier, this technique involves offsetting exposures in one currency with exposures in the same or another currency such that gains and losses on the two currency positions will offset each other.
Evaluating Alternative Hedging Mechanisms
Ordinarily, the selection of a funds adjustment strategy cannot proceed by evaluating each possible technique separately without risking suboptimization; for example, whether a firm chooses to borrow locally is not independent of its decision to use or not use those funds to import additional hard currency inventory. However, when the level of forward contracts that the financial manager can enter into is unrestricted, the following two-stage methodology allows the optimal level of forward transactions to be determined apart from the selection of what funds adjustment techniques to use.8 Moreover, this methodology is valid regardless of the manager’s (or firm’s) attitude toward risk.
Stage 1: Compute the profit associated with each funds adjustment technique on a covered after-tax basis. Transactions that are profitable on a covered basis ought to be undertaken regardless of whether they increase or decrease the firm’s accounting exposure. However, such activities should not be termed hedging; rather, they involve the use of arbitrage to exploit market distortions.
Stage 2: Any unwanted exposure resulting from the first stage can be corrected in the forward market. Stage 2 is the selection of an optimal level of forward transactions based on the firm’s initial exposure, adjusted for the impact on exposure of decisions made in Stage 1. When the forward market is nonexistent, or when access to it is limited, the firm must determine both the techniques to use and their appropriate levels. In the latter case, a comparison of the net cost of a funds adjustment technique with the anticipated currency depreciation will indicate whether the hedging transaction is profitable on an expected-value basis.
8 This methodology is presented in William R. Folks, Jr., “Decision Analysis for Exchange Risk Management,” Financial Management, Winter 1972, pp. 101-112.