Financial risk management also includes the area of raw material risk management. Financial risk management is organized centrally with respect to policy-making power, strategy determination, and target definition. The existing policies include targets, principles, duties, and responsibilities for both the Group treasury and individual Group companies. In addition, they govern the areas of pooling, money market, credit and securities management, currency, interest rate and liquidity risk, and reporting. The Group treasury, acting as a service center, is responsible for implementation. Three organizationally separate units are responsible for closing, processing and recording transactions, which guarantees a six-eyes principle. Policies, policy compliance, and all business processes are additionally audited once a year by an external auditor.
It is part of our corporate policy to continuously monitor, quantify and, where reasonable, hedge financial risks. Our willingness to accept risk is relatively low. The strategy aims at reducing fluctuations in cash flows and income. Hedging of market risks is done to a large extent by means of derivative financial instruments.
voestalpine AG uses the “@-risk” concept to quantify interest rate, currency, and commodity price risk. The maximum loss within one year is determined with 95% certainty. Risk is calculated for the open position, which is defined as the budgeted quantity for the next 12 months less the quantity that has already been hedged.
The variance-covariance approach is used to evaluate interest rate and foreign currency risk. The cash flow risk due to fluctuations in raw materials prices is calculated using the Monte Carlo simulation.
