The judges were unanimous in naming AstraZeneca the winner in this year’s Large Treasury Team category. At the heart of the team’s achievements in 2021 was its success in funding the cash component of AstraZeneca’s $39bn purchase of Alexion Pharmaceuticals – the company’s largest acquisition.
After arranging $17.5bn of syndicated committed facilities in December 2020, the AstraZeneca treasury team – which is relatively small for the size and complexity of the company – embarked on the task of preparing for the closing of the acquisition in 2021. This meant structuring the new finance companies, adding them to debt programmes that did not previously contain a parent guarantee, liaising with rating agencies and arranging the repayment of $2.3bn of Alexion debt with a change-of-control clause. Through USD and EUR bond issuances on consecutive days – a first for the company – $8bn was raised at very competitive pricing, with $4bn of bank loans drawn under the syndicated facilities on closing.
While the acquisition was a major focus for the team, there were numerous other achievements to report in 2021. In the past year, AstraZeneca’s treasury team has also upgraded its treasury system, implementing a cross-border cash pool between China and the UK, supported the business in its global vaccine efforts and managed the associated FX risks, and added four new banks to its relationship group on the extension of its core bank revolving credit facilities. The company’s forecasting processes on other FX exposures have also been improved.
Alongside all these achievements, the treasury team continued to support the organisation and maintain its business-as-usual treasury activities in a fully work-from-home environment, while welcoming new treasury colleagues from Alexion into the wider treasury team, managing the enlarged group’s FX exposures and cash investments, and pooling cash to and from the main Alexion treasury entity. Finally, the team began a strategic review of its end-to-end cash payment and receipt processes across the group, focusing on which structures and technologies should be implemented as part of the group’s move to an SAP S/4HANA environment in the coming years.
“The sheer volume of work in terms of the acquisition meant that AstraZeneca’s achievements really stood out. Despite the big team, only a small number of people were specifically working on the project, but the breadth of interaction with other stakeholders was key to the success of this excellent pricing.”