This year’s Large Team of the year award went to the BAE Systems Group Treasury team. In a standout year, the 20-strong team pulled together to tackle a series of strategic projects across all areas of treasury, with some impressive results.
The team supported a high-value strategic US acquisition. This included developing a financing strategy, securing a $5.5bn bridge facility and refinancing the company’s £2bn RCF as a combined transaction, as well as working closely with rating agencies to ensure that the group’s investment grade credit rating was maintained. They also closed a $201.4m structured conduit financing to fund a new shiplift facility. This involved the issuance of amortising 30-year notes into the US private placement market, secured against a stream of lease rentals from BAE Systems Ship Repair.
With an eye on regulatory risk, the team began reviewing exit options for its in-house pension fund asset manager. Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM) was appointed to manage around £23bn of pension scheme assets in what was the largest outsourced chief investment officer (OCIO) mandate in the UK to date.
The team has started an initiative to centralise the work linked to bonds and guarantees by transferring activities from business units to the Group Treasury. Following the announcement of the US acquisition, the US Treasury market experienced a period of extreme volatility. The team developed an interest rate strategy and entered into a number of interest rate hedges to reduce the PV01 exposure, while maintaining strategic flexibility to take advantage of interest rate volatility.
Working on numerous complex workstreams simultaneously presented considerable challenges, but the treasury team rose to the occasion with a proactive approach and a collaborative mindset, and has been recognised by the Board for its outstanding performance.
The BAE Systems team was able to demonstrate excellence across a very broad range of treasury activities, from ESG and refinancing to day-to-day trade finance and treasury operations, and even pension management.
Highly commended in this category was the BT Treasury Team, formed during COVID lockdowns in 2021, has successfully developed a culture of deep collaboration, engagement and focus on “making treasury a great place to do great work”. Notable achievements included multiple financing projects and proactive management of credit rating agencies, as well as establishing a supply chain finance programme, implementing leasing solutions and centralising cash management activities.
