The ACT Middle East Treasury Awards celebrate the achievements of the corporate treasurer and recognise companies and individuals that have shown innovation and excellence in corporate treasury in the region.

The judging panel were:

James Adams FCT, Group Treasurer, Chalhoub Group

David Chatsama FCT, Treasury Manager, Africa Export & Import Bank, Cairo, Egypt

Laura Ford, Senior Treasury Manager, Majid Al Futtaim Holding

Andrew McMichael FCT, Group Treasurer, Agility

Mona Patel, Treasurer, Fertiglobe

Roshun Tulkens, Group Treasurer, Averda

Our winners in the following categories reached the highest standards of excellence in deal execution and professional standards:

Capital Raising Award

WINNER: Almarai

The judges were impressed with Almarai’s execution across the year.  The overall delivery of the debt funding across both a rated sukuk and a bank facility as a combined effort stood out as an excellent performance.

Highly commended: Aldar Properties and Sobha Realty

Cash Management Award

WINNER: Aldar

The panel recognised Aldar’s solid performance delivering against the fundamentals of good cash management, enabled by their use of systems and technology, showed improved utilisation of cash, delivering savings on interest.

Highly commended: Jetex

Sustainability Award

WINNER: Landmark Retail

Landmark Retail showed a clear commitment in this area, with sustainability a core part of the organisation’s ethos and an aim to convert all treasury products to become sustainable. 

They developed KPIs for their sustainability linked loans associated with energy management, renewable energy and recycling amongst others.  This provided a clear and robust roadmap to incentivize achieving the targets - including a penalty structure to ensure accountability - and their overall trajectory of becoming Net Zero by 2040.

Highly commended: Royal Golden Eagle

Treasury Systems Award

WINNER: Fujairah Gold

The judges were impressed with the journey from a manual operation to a seamless integrated platform, optimising treasury functions and providing a strategic advantage with more visibility and control in real-time.  The achievements shown were particularly impressive given the size of the organization, and how the solution in partnership with IBS FinTech met their objectives and enhanced their treasury function.

Highly commended: Al Shirawi Group, Oasis Investment

Treasury Transformation Award

WINNER: GEMS Education

GEMS implemented a significant treasury transformation, taking a decentralised and complex operation with interests across several countries into an effective centralised treasury model, based out of the UAE.  Given their growth over the past decade and increasingly siloed activity, the judges said that bringing this all together was really impressive. The centralisation provided multiple benefits, not least closing over 100 accounts, optimising cash management structures and making substantial cost savings.

Highly commended: Checkout.com

Working Capital Solutions Award

WINNER: Noon

Noon sought to optimise its working capital to meet its business challenges in the UAE.  Having identified a clear set of challenges they presented innovative solutions, including a Buyer Led Supplier Financing programme to support payment terms, a Seller Financing programme to provide working capital support for their online merchants, and an interest optimisation structure across their account balances . The judges noted that the solution linked into the underlying commercials and supported their business model as an e-commerce platform.  

Highly commended: Jacobs Engineering Group

Corporate Team of the Year – Large

WINNER: Landmark Retail

Landmark Retail impressed the judges with their commendable work in streamlining their treasury procedures through digitisation, while simultaneously spearheading execution of multiple sustainability linked products.  This ultimately assisted in achieving the organisations sustainability targets and demonstrates the teams’ commitment to ESG principles.  

Collaboration and perseverance shone through. This was evidenced in part by the creation of an Interest Optimisation Structure, highlighting the team’s adaptability in working across stakeholders outside the finance function and their resilience in pushing this through. This framework has now not only been implemented in the UAE, but is also being rolled out across other GCC and SEA countries.

Corporate Team of the Year –Medium

WINNER: Aljabr Holding

The judges said that Aljabr Holding achieved much in a short space of time – especially considering they were a new team.  The list of tasks and challenges presented were striking in their volume and complexity, and ranged from virtually recruiting the bulk of a new treasury team, establishing a first time credit rating for the organisation,  implementing the new TMS alongside new bank account structures, and executing new financing structures to support their business. 

Treasury Professional of the Year – Service Provider

WINNER: Sleiman El Homsi, PwC

Strong technical treasury skills came through as a common theme for the judges, as were the characteristics of being organised, clear, efficient and results-oriented.  Sleiman El Homsi is recognised for building trust and credibility and acting with integrity – putting himself in the shoes of the treasurer to deliver excellent results.

Future Leader in Treasury Award

WINNER: Fatma Alshekaili, ASYAD Group

The judges said that the winner has some 30 years’ experience within finance and treasury, and has played a pivotal role in developing innovative trade financing structure for their organisation and both shaping and executing the organisation’s strategy. This includes centralising treasury operations, driving an in-house bank project to great success – reducing external borrowing costs significantly and investing surplus cash for higher yield. More impressive that the first phase of this centralisation took place during COVID!  As a leader he is a strong advocate for challenging the status quo, from looking at new processes to streamlining operations to mentoring graduates, the list of achievements is impressive.

Media enquiries, and requests for interviews:
Iman Ashraf
Account Manager
Taqarabu Communications
E: iman.ashraf@taqarabu.com

ABOUT THE ACT 

The Association of Corporate Treasurers (ACT) is the only professional treasury body with a Royal Charter. We set the global benchmark for treasury excellence and lead the profession through our internationally recognised qualifications, by defining standards and by championing continuing professional development. We are the authentic voice of the treasury profession representing the interests of the real economy and educating, supporting and leading the treasurers of today and tomorrow. www.treasurers.org