Once an overall hedging program has been designed, it must be linked with a stable financing structure. Hedging can consume significant cash in the form of collateral, margin, or letters of credit. Unrealized losses may also count against available credit lines. However, there are several mechanisms available to help minimize hedging’s impact on a company’s balance sheet. Eco+Risk helps its clients design hedging programs which optimize available working capital while balancing capital needs with hedge goals. Our capital and liquidity service offerings include:
- Measuring and managing counterparty credit risk, especially to incumbent financial and merchant institutions;
- Establishing commodity price leverage by providing transparency to the market and key constituents, securing commodity-indexed capital, and developing “off-credit” strategies;
- Managing the emerging regulatory framework by moving non-exempt derivatives to clearinghouses, optimizing the customized-standardized derivative mix, and determining exemption status;
- Identifying liquidity and asset matching opportunities;
- Developing term structure and forward curve strategies to capture financing opportunities implicit in backwardation or contango;
- With respect to projects or new capital intensive undertakings, consider commodity-indexed capital or off-credit vehicles to achieve commodity price hedge objectives; and
- Consider-government sponsored programs to access cost efficient capital as well as private investment focused on emerging renewable and related technologies.