CCR World Magazine

Paris, France – May 15, 2012 - Tessenderlo Group, one of the world’s largest chemical companies with reported revenue of 2.4 billion Euros last year, has selected SunGard’s AvantGard for treasury and payments management. AvantGard will help Tessenderlo improve visibility and management of liquidity and cash with managed bank communications via the SWIFT network. The solutions will be hosted by SunGard.

Already using AvantGard Receivables (GETPAID) for order-to-cash management in Europe, Tessenderlo will globally deploy the AvantGard solutions which include: AvantGard Integrity for cash management and forecasting; AvantGard Trax for payments centralization and workflow standardization; and managed bank and SWIFTNet connectivity through the SunGard SWIFT Service Bureau. The solutions will be hosted by SunGard to help Tessenderlo reduce dependency on internal IT resources and improve total cost of ownership.

Beyond the treasury headquarters in Brussels, the integrated project will initially be rolled out to two Tessenderlo entities, Eurocell and Akiolis, and the accounts payable shared service centre in Leuven, Belgium. The broader project scope will include all Tessenderlo subsidiaries across 30 different countries.

“We are relying on SunGard to help us meet our entire liquidity management needs and to help us re-define the role of treasury within our organization,” said Martine Marique, head of group treasury at Tessenderlo. We process roughly 300,000 payments every year, across Tessenderlo, in 15 different currencies, so we are looking forward to being able to simplify and standardize this function as well as more easily comply with SEPA regulations and evolving bank communication requirements. Local treasurers will be able to use central tools for cash management and bank account reconciliation. Overall, the project is a substantial undertaking, but we’re confident that SunGard will deliver and help us improve visibility of our cash.”

“Tessenderlo’s goals for the project exemplify how SunGard can help its customers gain a holistic view of cash for liquidity management;” said Steve Evans, managing director EMEA, for SunGard’s AvantGard business unit. “AvantGard will help Tessenderlo increase efficiency, save time and reduce costs through greater automation and a hosted environment.”

(Source - SunGard Press Release)