The Currency You Won't Name
AORAKI, FROM THE EXPORTER'S CHAIR
// THE SETUP
You founded Aoraki twelve years ago and have banked with the same bank for eight of them. Three-quarters of your NZ$36m of sales are invoiced in USD; almost all of your costs are in NZD. On Tuesday you asked to replace the NZ$4.0m revolver with a NZ$6.0m-equivalent multi-currency line, drawable in USD and, as you put it, maybe one or two others, mix to be confirmed at documentation. You mentioned that another bank had a term sheet on your desk. It does.
On Friday the approval came, and it is not the one you asked for and not the refusal you half expected. The bank has approved an NZD core sized to your local costs, plus a USD sub-limit capped at 80% of eligible USD receivables, drawings matched to invoice tenor, with a minimum hedge-cover covenant. Sized off the flows you disclosed, the two legs come to very nearly the NZ$6m equivalent. Any third currency is available on one condition: a currency-mapped cash flow with named counterparties.
The other bank's sheet offers NZ$6m multi-currency, mix at documentation, no schedule, no hedge covenant, forty basis points cheaper. Peak shipping starts in three weeks. Your finance manager has asked, carefully, what the third currency is for.
Nearly your number, in two legs, and a question you would rather not answer. What do you sign this week?
NZ food exporters typically hedge 6–12 months of forecast USD receipts. The bank's covenant puts a floor under that number. The other bank's term sheet does not mention it.