Financing the Business

Interview #4 with Peter van Rood, Group Treasurer, Brune Singh, Director External Markets and Harry Blok, Director Corporate Finance, AkzoNobel

In this interview, the fourth in the series, we continue our exploration of AkzoNobel’s treasury transformation project, spearheaded by Group Treasurer Peter van Rood. In this edition, we build on some of the financing experiences that Peter shared during the second interview, including AkzoNobel’s approach to both internal and external financing, featuring Peter together with Brune Singh and Harry Blok, Director of External Markets and Director of Corporate Finance respectively.

How was your financing organised when you embarked on your treasury transformation project in 2007?

AkzoNobel manages three types of financing: intragroup loans (debt/equity), bank lines and capital funding. In 2007, the various funding components of the business were far less integrated than they are today. External funding had been remote from treasury, resulting in a process disconnect, and reflecting too the fact that that treasury’s role was predominantly operational at that stage. Since then, we have aimed to make our financing strategy and execution more coherent. From the point of view of internal financing, we were focused primarily on the execution of loan documentation, with a predominantly reactive approach to intra-group funding.

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