1. Multinational Financial Management: Opportunities and Challenges
Chapter 1
Multinational Financial Management: Opportunities and Challenges

2. Learning Objectives
Understand the complexity of risks associated with financial globalization
Explore how global capital markets are critical for the exchange of products, services, and capital in the execution of global business
Consider how the theory of comparative advantage establishes the foundations for the justification for international trade and commerce

3. Learning Objectives
Discover what is different about international financial management, and which market imperfections give rise to the multinational enterprise
Examine how imperfections in global markets translate into opportunities for multinational enterprises
Consider how the globalization process moves a business from a purely domestic focus in its financial relationships and composition to one truly global in scope

4. The Multinational Enterprise (MNE)
The October–December 2014 quarter was a challenging one with unprecedented currency devaluations. Virtually every currency in the world devalued versus the U.S. dollar, with the Russian Ruble leading the way. While we continue to make steady progress on the strategic transformation of the company—which focuses P&G on about a dozen core categories and 70 to 80 brands, on leading brand growth, on accelerating meaningful product innovation and increasing productivity savings—the considerable business portfolio, product innovation, and productivity progress was not enough to overcome foreign exchange.
—Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer A.G. Lafley, January 27, 2015
A multinational enterprise (MNE) has operating branches, subsidiaries, or affiliates located in foreign countries.
Today’s MNEs are dependent on emerging markets.

5. Financial Globalization and Risk
The global financial market place is a combination of complex risks:
The international monetary system is an eclectic mix of floating and managed fixed exchange rates. China is more and more a dominant player.
Monetary and fiscal policies are complicated by large fiscal deficits.
Large and continuing balance of payments imbalances will shift the exchange rate landscape.
The dominant form of business may has shifted from the publicly-traded firm to the privately owned model.
Global capital markets are shrinking and changing.
Large inflows and outflows of capital travel through industrial and emerging markets complicating financial management.

6. The Global Financial Marketplace
Assets, institutions, and linkages comprise one method to map global capital markets (see Exhibit 1.1).
Assets are debt securities issued by governments (e.g., U.S. Treasury Bonds). These form the baseline for other forms of financing.
Institutions are the central banks, commercial, and investment banks. Their health keeps the global financial system stable.
Linkages are the interbank networks using currency. Without ready exchange of currencies the market is hard-pressed to operate efficiently.

7. Exhibit 1.1 Global Capital Markets

8. The Market for Currencies
Most currencies are quoted against the dollar as in “so many units per dollar”
A few are quoted as “dollars per unit” due to custom e.g., $/£ and $/€.
There are also several symbols that can be used to write the quotations, but this is the author’s stated preference.
Exhibit 1.2 provides selected currency exchange rate quotes

9. Exhibit 1.2 Selected Global Currency Exchange Rates

10. Exhibit 1.2 Selected Global Currency Exchange Rates (cont.)

11. Eurocurrencies and LIBOR
Eurocurrencies (a major linkage in the global and capital markets)
These are domestic currencies of one country on deposit in a second country
The Eurocurrency markets serve two valuable purposes:
Eurocurrency deposits are an efficient and convenient money market device for holding excess corporate liquidity
The Eurocurrency market is a major source of short-term bank loans to finance corporate working capital needs (including export and import financing)

12. Eurocurrencies and LIBOR
Eurocurrency Interest Rates: LIBOR
In the Eurocurrency market, the reference rate of interest is the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR)
This rate is the most widely accepted rate of interest used in standardized quotations, loan agreements, and financial derivatives transactions

13. The Theory of Comparative Advantage
The theory of comparative advantage provides a basis for explaining and justifying international trade in a model world assumed to enjoy:
free trade;
perfect competition;
no uncertainty;
costless information; and
no government interference.

14. The Theory of Comparative Advantage
The theory contains the following features:
Exporters in Country A sell goods or services to unrelated importers in Country B
Firms in Country A specialize in making products that can be produced relatively efficiently, given Country A’s endowment of factors of production, that is, land, labor, capital, and technology
Firms in Country B do likewise, given the factors of production found in Country B
In this way the total combined output of A and B is maximized

15. The Theory of Comparative Advantage
Because the factors of production cannot be moved freely from Country A to Country B, the benefits of specialization are realized through international trade
The way the benefits of the extra production are shared depends on the terms of trade, the ratio at which quantities of the physical goods are traded
Each country’s share is determined by supply and demand in perfectly competitive markets in the two countries
Neither Country A nor Country B is worse off than before trade, and typically both are better off, albeit perhaps unequally

16. The Theory of Comparative Advantage
Although international trade might have approached the comparative advantage model during the nineteenth century, it certainly does not today, for the following reasons:
Countries do not appear to specialize only in those products that could be most efficiently produced by that country’s particular factors of production (as a result of government interference and ulterior motivations)
At least two factors of production – capital and technology – now flow directly and easily between countries

17. The Theory of Comparative Advantage
Modern factors of production are more numerous than in this simple model
Although the terms of trade are ultimately determined by supply and demand, the process by which the terms are set is different from that visualized in traditional trade theory
Comparative advantage shifts over time, as less developed countries become developed and realize their latent opportunities
The classical model of comparative advantage did not really address certain other issues, such as the effect of uncertainty and information costs, the role of differentiated products in imperfectly competitive markets, and economies of scale

18. The Theory of Comparative Advantage
Comparative advantage is however still a relevant theory to explain why particular countries are most suitable for exports of goods and services that support the global supply chain of both MNEs and domestic firms.
The comparative advantage of the 21st century, however, is one based more on services, and their cross-border facilitation by telecommunications and the Internet.
The source of a nation’s comparative advantage is still created from the mixture of its own labor skills, access to capital, and technology.

19. The Theory of Comparative Advantage
Many locations for supply chain outsourcing exist today.
It takes a relative advantage in costs, not just an absolute advantage, to create comparative advantage.
Clearly, the extent of global outsourcing is reaching out to every corner of the globe.

20. What is Different About International Financial Management?
Exhibit 1.3 summarizes the differences.
Culture and history differ among countries
Corporate governance
Greater levels of foreign exchange and political risks
Financial theory and applications are modified in the global versus domestic marketplace
Specialized and complicated financial instruments become tools of the trade

21. Exhibit 1.3 What Is Different About International Financial Management?

22. Market Imperfections: A Rationale for the Existence of the Multinational Firm
MNEs strive to take advantage of imperfections in national markets for products, factors of production, and financial assets.
Imperfections in the market for products translate into market opportunities for MNEs.
Large international firms are better able to exploit such competitive factors as economies of scale, managerial and technological expertise, product differentiation, and financial strength than their local competitors.

23. Market Imperfections: A Rationale for the Existence of the Multinational Firm
Strategic motives drive the decision to invest abroad and become a MNE and can be summarized under the following categories:
Market seekers
Raw material seekers
Production efficiency seekers
Knowledge seekers
Political safety seekers
These categories are not mutually exclusive.

24. The Globalization Process
Stage I: early domestic phase growing into the international trade phase (Exhibit 1.4)
Stage II: A successful firm will continue to grow from simple international trade to the multinational phase characterized by production and investment both at home and abroad (Exhibit 1.5)
Growth may be limited by the twin agency problems of corporate insiders and the rulers of sovereign states (Exhibit 1.6)

25. Exhibit 1.4 Ganado Corp: Initiation of the Globalization Process

26. Exhibit 1.5 Ganado’s Foreign Direct Investment Sequence

27. Exhibit 1.6 The Limits of Financial Globalization