PwC buys Asia Pacific Risk Management

Currencies

PwC to buy Roger J Kerr's Asia Pacific Risk Management for undisclosed amount; principals to become PwC partners

17th Sep 12, 9:34pm by Bernard Hickey

Accountancy and consulting partnership PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has announced it has bought currency risk advice firm Asia-Pacific Risk Management (APRM) and its principals Roger J Kerr, Stuart Henderson and Brett Johanson will become PwC partners on October 1.

APRM was established in 1998 to advise companies on managing currency, interest rate and commodity price risks, as well as debt and funding risks for larger borrowers.

PwC NZ CEO Bruce Hassall said the acquisition further developed PwC's financial product valuation service.

“The APRM team has an excellent reputation based on providing robust, timely, innovative and strategic advice. They’re a perfect fit with our PwC value proposition and strategy,” Hassall said in a statement.

“APRM and PwC are to us, a natural fit!” said APRM's Brett Johanson.

APRM has nine advisors and analysts, currently servicing 115 organisations that retain the company for ongoing treasury management advice.

Roger J Kerr said the opportunities were considerable.

“To transfer our intellectual property and grow our business from the New Zealand testing-bed to companies in Australia and Asia, we concluded we needed a major advisory name behind us to open the doors. PwC's current New Zealand financial risk/treasury management advisory services rather nicely complements our own, so we are both seeking and expecting one + one to equal three!” Kerr said.

Their admission as lateral Partners at PwC will bring the total number of Partners to 111 nationally. PwC New Zealand has more than 1,300 staff across eight New Zealand offices.

We welcome your comments below. If you are not already registered, please register to comment

Remember we welcome robust, respectful and insightful debate. We don't welcome abusive or defamatory comments and will de-register those repeatedly making such comments. Our current comment policy is here.

12 Comments

by Colin Riden | 18th Sep 12, 12:27am 1347884863

Only here on a brief visit.

I would like to comment, but it is probably better that I don't cause offense to one or more of the parties involved.

by Stephen Hulme | 18th Sep 12, 10:18am 1347920309

Colin let me get someone else to do so - Sex, lies, and accounting fraud

by Stephen Hulme | 18th Sep 12, 10:19am 1347920383

sry fat finger

by Horace the Grump | 18th Sep 12, 9:54am 1347918862

Roger... what have you done???

Actually I can answer that... taken the money.

by steven | 18th Sep 12, 10:04am 1347919466

cash is king.

regards

by Andrewj | 18th Sep 12, 10:29am 1347920994

Bit insensitive, as Roger is probably, literally, bathing in the stuff as we type.

Financialisation is the future, we should all jump on the wagon while there is still time.

Real work, producing things is so passe, its so much easier,quicker and cleaner Rogers way.

by steven | 18th Sep 12, 1:25pm 1347931507

Hmm It wasnt meant that way....If he's looking at risk and he's on my plain then converting an asset to cash while he can makes sense (aka BH), I would. Even if he isnt, he takes out a lot of risk, gets a wad and has doors open for markets while still getting a very good salary, strikes me as a win, win.

"real work", well delusion is I think spread very thickly....I can see the farmers point of view....work hard meanwhile others get large rewards for doing nothing of real substance/import.

regards

by Stephen Hulme | 18th Sep 12, 11:25am 1347924327

One reason could be that Roger might keep compounding his mistakes he wontonly published here at the LA client's expense with more demanding corporate muscle than he exercised previously - also we may run into conflict of interest situations that probably need to be looked into - advisor/auditor conflicts - all paid for by the ratepayer.

I am now sure the meek will never inherit a lower rates bill.

by Bernard Hickey | 18th Sep 12, 1:07pm 1347930451

Careful boys about making broad accusations of wrongdoing.

Easy to throw accusations. We have to clean up the messes afterwards.

Please be cautious.

cheers

Bernard

by Gummy Bear Hero | 19th Sep 12, 10:20am 1348006852

Are you taking Jock Anderson & NBR to court , Bernard ...... for accusing you of seeking Gerry Brownlee's help in having them barred from budget briefings & Reverse Bank lock-ups ?

...... their accusations of wrondoing are false , aren't they ?

by Plan B | 18th Sep 12, 1:44pm 1347932683

It is interesting how the big four accounting firms bring out the 'attack dog' in us, me included

by Stephen Hulme | 18th Sep 12, 3:22pm 1347938534

It's not surprising when Auckland Council recently said costs hitting its bottom line, for the year from July 1, 2011 to June 30, 2012, include NZ$167 million from the unrealised cost of contracts to fix future interest rates at current historic lows.

It will be the case that an outside risk advisor consultant, I no not whom, will have had input into this decision and been paid to do so. And this not an isolated case of significant client losses in this type of contract either here or abroad.

I made the following comment when Gareth posted the original press release.

Thanks Gareth:

A council spokeswoman told interest.co.nz the NZ$167 million hit to the bottom line from interest rate swaps on loans stemmed from a combination of new swaps and swaps inherited from legacy councils. She described the contracts as "forward starting fixed rate paid (borrowing) interest rate swaps."

"The contracts are spread across a number of banks as you would expect with a diversified portfolio. The physical debt portfolio is currently NZ$4 billion in size and projected to increase to NZ$8.5 billion in size. It is prudent to hedge a portion of this increase in projected debt to reduce council's risk to an increase in interest rates," the spokeswoman said.

Forward-starting swaps lock in the rate today for an asset or liability to be created or sold in the future. A company that plans to issue fixed rate at a future date can use a forward-starting swap to hedge the future issuance rate. Forward-starting swaps allow companies to take advantage of favorable rates when the market offers them - not just when coming to market. Locking in the forward financing costs or investment yields allow the hedger to accurately budget cash flows and expenses related to future projects.

One has to wonder who offered the advice that there is a risk that rates might rise over the new issuance time horizon?

Domestic NZ risk advisors and their consultants always seem to be on the wrong end of the trade for their clients while the counterparty banks are on the other.

My cynical side finds it hard to ignore possible acts of collusion when global central banks continuously make verbal assetions to "do what ever it takes" followed by actions confirming ZIRP leading to firm market prognostications of NIRP. NZIER even managed to assert:

The Reserve Bank will look through the current food and fuel price shocks and keep the Official Cash Rate on hold into 2014, the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER) says.

Or is it a desperate desire to assume a return to better economic growth and associate higher rates with such wishful thinking? Whatever, the ratepayers deserve a professional approach and unless one is forhcoming they should seek a mandate to exercise a cease and desist order against the council floundering around in the world of derivatives.

Since this was posted both the Fed and RBNZ have extended the horizon for lower for longer interest rate policy.