You are now the not-so-new CFO of Agri-Drone. It's been over a year since you introduced the Company to the idea of managing risks it confronts in doing business overseas. The market buzz about the Company's innovation has continued. The first foreign customer, the French farming cooperative, has made additional purchases, and word is spreading about the Company's family of unique products.
As your first foray into the realm of international sales gathers steam, you recommend and implement an immediate hedge of the entire $1.1 million sale to the French Co-op by using a six month forward contract.
You've been using that approach ever since.
As it turns out, the EUR/USD strengthens during the six months of that first forward contract, and it sits at 1.40 at the time Agri-Drone receives its payment in euros. Jim, the VP of Sales, isn't the only person to comment that Agri-Drone would have been better off in hindsight without your forward contract in place.
You just shake your head.
The good news is that most members of the Company's leadership team ‘get it.' Your initiative in protecting the Company has been recognized, and with the endorsement of Stephanie Majors, the CEO, you have educated the leadership team about the Company's foreign currency risks and what it should be doing about them. With the exception of Jim, who continues to chide you when (and only when) currency fluctuations go in Agri-Drone's favor, everybody seems pretty happy.
There is one person who is truly not satisfied, however, and that's you.
"This is getting expensive!"
What has caused your frustration is your need to constantly commit Agri-Drone's borrowing capacity to support what seems to be an ever-growing series of forward contracts that are, just now, starting to involve multiple currencies. Your bank, behaving like banks do, insists on a progressively growing letter of credit to back the forward contracts. Under your loan agreement, letters of credit get
subtracted from your credit line, so your borrowing capacity gets reduced.
You, of course, can contemplate better uses for the credit line in support of the Company's rapid growth. Certainly, it could be used for expanded working capital needs, but you're also starting to hear whispers of plant expansion ideas. Some of these certainly could be outside of the U.S.
You know that sooner or later a more cost efficient way of handling Agri-Drone's currency risk issues will be needed as the types of risk evolve.
So, you begin to explore other ways to contain currency risk. Sure, you know about options, but you think their cost would be a hard sell internally. You can almost hear Jim saying: "What? Two or three percent right off the top on every international deal?" While you hate to admit it, on this one you and Jim agree.
And so today you are wondering about two things:
Is there a more cost-effective way to eliminate foreign currency risk?
Is there truly a need to eliminate all foreign currency risk?