Published: November 01, 2009
Lettre du Trésorier
Philippe Autin
Nouvelles Messageries de la Presse Parisienne, whose activity is principally supplying press titles to agents or wholesalers and then to vendors. Set up two years after the end of World War II, the company is owned 51% by five publishing co-operatives and 49% by Hachette SA.
A few figures will give you an idea - the group which has a significant per-edition market share, distributes 60,000 titles to 180 agents, which in turn serve 29,600 points-of-sale in 20,000 locations in France. This represents 2.3bn copies per year. In a single day an area of 180,000 kilometres is covered and 1,500 tonnes of newspapers supplied.
PA: The sales network is built on a chain of mandates binding the partners to each other at all levels – from the publisher to the delivery company, from the delivery company to the agent – or wholesaler - and from agent to the vendor. These mandates determine, amongst other things, the sales commission collected at each level, bearing in mind that sales figures are not known until the unsold amounts have been established. The statements are drawn up on a weekly basis. Each level passes the cash on to the level above based on the net supplies after deducting their fees. Bearing in mind NMPP is a shareholder in some agents, it is easy to understand the large number of bank accounts – just over 200. In annual terms, the total inflows and outflows of cash total €8bn while the number of accounting transactions amount to 450,000.
PA: We have set up two cash pools which operate on the principle of merged interest scales with our four cash banks, and we have developed our own systems for billing interest within the framework of treasury agreements.
PA: We decided to get out of asset management in June 2007 and to place our surpluses solely in highly secure monetary products. We invest cash surpluses in certificates of deposit, time deposits and negotiable treasury notes until we know the effects of the current work and considerations in France and other countries regarding UCITS and monetary funds.
PA: No. The group also distributes the French press in other countries so we have to handle four currencies outside the Eurozone - the Swiss franc, the pound sterling, the US dollar and the Canadian dollar. We hedge the receipts denominated in these currencies solely through forward sales. One of the difficulties of the exercise is to ascertain the amounts of flows at 60 or 90 days, something which can change quite significantly as a result of the volumes of unsold titles. Conversely, in France we distribute newspapers on behalf of foreign publishers, an activity, which as you may imagine, is subject to strong seasonal variations. [[[PAGE]]]
PA: Four years ago we opted for treasury management software produced by Sage which operates in ASP mode (managed outside the company). The software is supplied every day with cash forecasts by an integrated ERP application provided by SAP. The payment centre until now operated from our server but with the prospect of the introduction of SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area), we also chose to toggle between AST mode with the same software publisher. The transition is under way. With a total of 200 bank accounts to manage, we have large volumes of payments every day, encompassing direct debits, bank transfers, cheques or v-com, which favoured a fully paperless system. Payments are managed in fact with the assistance of an electronic signature file in the ERP system. This electronic signature file gives access to the amount and to the paperless invoice. When it validates the payment, the signatory automatically issues the cheque from a single document regardless of the company in question. The other files which relate to transfers or direct debits are obviously sent to the banks using Etebac 5 protocol.
PA: With our activities primarily in France, we took the view that EBICS, the German banking communications protocol recommended by CFONB (Comité Français d’Organisation et de Normalisation Bancaire) was the most suitable. For us it is sort of a continuation of ETEBAC 5. We are still waiting for our publisher to produce the treasury management system for the EBICS version and to see along with the banks what advances will be made in terms of certificates. Lastly, in a company like ours where 80% of the amounts are received by direct debit, the mandates will be complicated. We need to archive them so we can produce them at any time for the debtors’ banks. And the increase in the repayment period will present us with problems in terms of monitoring the accounts.
PA: The team is made up of four people who, in addition to the tasks I have mentioned, take care of around 60 companies, notably in the area of investment or operational finance. The treasury department is also responsible for monitoring expense claims for the whole group.
PA: Apart from my first job with a large insurance company, I have always been a treasurer. Firstly at Servier laboratories where I familiarised myself with the basics of the profession then at Nouvelles Messageries de la Presse Parisienne. So I have been in the profession for around 30 years now, which means that the start of my career coincided with the boom in the profession.
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