"Reese Partners helped Huhtamaki realize significant cost savings of over $2 million a year. The expertise provided by Reese Partners was superior to what we could have done internally, with respect to both quality and time. They brought an objective view that couldn't be replicated internally, worked within a tight timeline and presented what made the most sense given both current and future business trends."
"Reese Partners assessed our current state of effectiveness and efficiency at our Grant Park Engineering Center, benchmarked us to similar operations and recommended opportunities for improvement. They brought great industry knowledge that supported the benchmark, plus brought a fresh set of unbiased eyes to the assessment."
Rectifying internal control problems slashes costs
Business Case
After an internal audit identified yet another serious cash management and correspondent banking control issue within this multi-bank holding company, it became very clear that the only way to solve the persistent problems in this poorly understood area was to centralize the function. The idea was resisted at all levels of management for a wide variety of reasons, but the potential opportunity to reduce both risks and expenses was too important to give up.
Reese Partners Role
Reese Partners was brought in to assist with the following: » Establish one lead bank to serve as a correspondent bank on behalf of all the other subsidiaries and manage all of the related activity, reconcilement and distribution of information from a new department to be built in the central operations company. » Convince the holding company CFO, the head of internal audit, the individual bank controllers and representatives from the correspondent banks to support the plan. » Build the systems, staff the department and manage the methodical conversion of each bank to the new method over a period of three months.
Client Success
The client realized significant improvements by: » Eliminating persistent internal control issues in a poorly understood, high-volume, large dollar value area of the bank without increasing overall headcount; » Negotiating more favorable terms with the correspondent banks and by taking advantage of a new local check-clearing exchange; and » Re-investing freed-up cash into higher yielding investments.
Results
The client realized increased funds availability and reduced required operating balances by over $10 million. Correspondent banking charges were slashed by more than $350,000 per year.
