Teri Bowen Takes on New Role in Treasury

 

Earlier this April, UVAFinance Solution Center User Success Agent Teri Bowen took on a new role within Treasury.  

In her new position as a treasury analyst, Bowen will analyze the University's daily bank accounts and assist with daily cash positioning, develop relationships with the University's banking partners, process debt services and other treasury payments, and much more.  She'll also help triage the Treasury Salesforce queue.

That responsibility isn't the only way her past work with the Solution Center will serve her well. 

 "In my previous position, I've been exposed to many areas of central finance and have been engaged with all areas within UVA, and learning a little bit about each area has been helpful, and provided me with necessary growth in my skills and knowledge that will help me going forward," says Bowen.

Congratulations, Teri!

Meet Todd Hite, UVA Claims Adjuster

The Hite Family

As the claims adjuster for the University of Virginia, Todd Hite handles claims for everything except matters involving medical center patients.  As he explains it, this means claims adjusting for anything involving anything UVA owns, including property, cars, buildings, and more, from UVA-Wise all the way to a research station in Alaska.  

Hite has been with the University in the Office of Property & Liability Risk Management for almost six months and has a 20-year career in the insurance industry.  He comes to us most recently from the Virginia Farm Bureau, where he had worked since 2012.  Hite was interested in the move to academia because of the focus on risk management instead of decisions about liability/fault.  He says, "My focus at UVA is taking care of our stakeholders, and I've enjoyed that change."

He acknowledges that acclimating to UVA has been a substantial learning curve since the University is like a big city.  Yet that scope is also fundamental to his enjoyment of his work.   "There are many entities under each of the many different departments, and I get to work with all the different departments.  I've enjoyed building those relationships with the people we cover," Hite says. 

In addition to getting to know his colleagues in the broad range of departments and units with whom he works, Hite says the claims themselves have been interesting to work with, as they've run the gamut from proper coverage for significant events to dealing with vandalism on a research facility in a remote area. 

Hite and his wife of 22 years Heather have a son, Vaiden (16), and a daughter, Logan (11).  A sports enthusiast, Hite enjoys attending his son's baseball, basketball, and track events, as well as supporting his daughter in her volleyball and artistic pursuits.  As a Waynesboro native, he recommends trying out the River Burger Bar or Greenleaf Grill if you find yourself in town.

Data Analysis, Funding Strategy Support Capital Project on Grounds

UVAFinance’s work across Grounds can often be behind-the-scenes but sometimes it is front and center, such as right at the Emmet-Ivy entrance corridor.

A new hotel and conference center and the School of Data Science will anchor the 15-acre area to serve as a central point to University Grounds, as well as an entrance corridor for visitors to the University.

With any University capital project, UVAFinance is involved in helping manage the identified funding sources, such as state funding, cash reserves, gifts from donors, and debt.

“This project is unique in that it is direct revenue generating,” says UVA Treasurer Julie Richardson. “The hotel and conference center, when fully operational, will provide income through overnight lodging, meeting and event facilities, and food and beverage.”

With revenue generating projects, UVA Treasury looks at the projected timing and availability of revenues to access debt sources, in a strategic manner. The strategy is in analyzing cash flow for the business, consider asset operating costs, reserves and revenue assumptions.

 (Deborah Berke Partners/Hanbury Architects)

“This project took a lot of data analysis and evaluating a variety of loan structures,” Richardson says. “We carefully analyzed the type of debt we could access and calculated the projected revenue and timing to support the debt service.”Generally, UVAFinance is involved in identifying capital sources for building projects around the time that it is being developed to present to the Board of Visitors’ Building and Grounds Committee. Richardson and team run scenarios on sequencing and sizing of multiple funding sources. This information helps leadership make decisions on the financial structuring of projects.

In 2021, the Board of Visitors approved the designs for the state-of-the-art, 223,000-square-foot hotel and conference center.

“Construction timing of all capital projects is important, but it was even more so with the hotel and conference center building,” Richardson explains. “We developed a timeline on when we expect specific revenue and how the loans would be structured. Essentially, we are making an investment that we want to benefit the entire University Community.”

The hotel construction is estimated to be completed by spring 2025 with an opening planned for later in the summer. The hotel and conference center will be open to the public and will facilitate University events and gatherings. The 214-room hotel also will offer approximately 25,000 square feet of conference center space and provide the University convenient, centrally located accommodations for visiting scholars and lecturers, prospective faculty members and students, returning alumni, career recruiters and other visitors.

Gene Crouch takes on new role at George Mason University

 As Gene Crouch approaches his last day at UVAFinance, he says that what he’ll miss most are the relationships and camaraderie with his colleagues. Thankfully, the UVAFinance team intends to keep those strong friendships alive and well as Gene transitions to becoming the Treasurer and Assistant Vice President of George Mason University’s first-ever Treasury Management Department.

In his new role, Gene will support treasury management operations with a focus on capital and operating financing strategies and planning. He will provide expert oversight of day-to-day operating cash activities and he will also provide leadership for pension plan investment fund performance and of debt issuance and management.

A big undertaking that he is prepared for because of his keen ability to build new initiatives with lasting power even during complex restructuring.

Serving as the Director of Treasury at UVA and leading projects that have added significant value to the university, he says that taking on challenges has made his time with UVAFinance memorable.

“I was in the budget office during restructuring and was able to participate in building from the ground up,” he says. “With strong mentorship and a good team, I’ve benefitted from watching the university grow through projects like providing capital for the University Medical Center expansion and the John Paul Jones Area construction.”

For more than ten years, Gene has been a key part of managing the long-term debt portfolio, commercial paper issuance, and derivate activities, as well as day-to-day operations of the Internal Bank.

“When Gene joined Treasury, the Internal Bank was relatively new with a debt portfolio of barely $1B and a handful of internal loans,” says Julie Richardson, University Treasurer. “Gene’s efforts helped develop the Bank to one that is modeled throughout higher ed, with almost 100 internal loans, and over $3.2B of capitalization, generated by multiple record-setting transactions. It’s been an honor to work along-side Gene to create something truly amazing. Though I’ll miss working with Gene, I know he will go on to do great things for GMU also!”

Gene’s commitment to UVA, expertise, and daily presence as part of UVAFinance’s mission will be greatly missed. You are invited to share well wishes with him here.

UVA sets records in bond sales (again!)

Two years ago, UVA made national news with the execution of three bond sales at historically low rates (see the story from UVAToday).  This summer, they did it again, issuing $100,000,000 of tax-exempt thirty-year bonds and $300,000,000 of taxable thirty-year bonds at historically low rates, setting two records!

The tax-exempt bonds achieved the lowest yield-to-maturity ever for any such bond issuance, and the taxable bonds achieved the lowest credit spread ever for such bonds. 

The Unviersity was positioned to take advantage of favorable market conditions for this sale after the three major rating agencies (Moody's, S&P, and Fitch) all reaffirmed UVA's triple-A bond ratings and overall stable outlook.

The bond proceeds will provide financing for projects under the multi-year capital plan, to purchase remaining membership interest with Novant Health in Northern Virginia, and much more. 

Congratulations to the Finance team, especially UVA Treasury, for the work they do to build upon previous success in the markets and to strengthen UVA's financial position in the long term.

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Get a peek behind the scenes of the 2019 bond deal.

Learn more about Treasury, Risk Management, and Julie Richardson, UVA's Treasurer.

The World of Treasury & Risk Management at UVA

Treasury and Risk Management became a part of UVAFinance in early 2019. Between them, the two units manage the University’s debt portfolio, banking and cash management, short-term investment and liquidity management, and maintaining property, casualty, and liability risk management and insurance.

At least, that’s their function in plain terms. When examined more closely, the reality of Treasury and Risk Management’s work is more dynamic.

Julie Richardson, University Treasurer, explains her units’ activities in terms of their impact on UVA’s day to day operations.

“What we do is like running a household.  Your paycheck is your income; here, it is tuition, revenue, gifts, Commonwealth support, sales and service.  You have a mortgage, and we have a debt portfolio.  You have a retirement account, we have the endowment and long-term pool.  You need insurance for your house and car, and we need insurance for buildings, vehicles and medical practices and so much more,” she explains.

Click on the Image for a larger view

When you factor in all the complexity and size of the University, Treasury and Risk Management’s responsibilities multiply by several times. Adding to this complexity is the fact that the team doesn’t just think about UVA’s needs today, but instead, what the needs will be five, ten, or a hundred years down the road.

“We think almost to infinity,” laughs Richardson. 

A perfect example of this long-term thinking is the recent execution of three bond sales that took advantage of historically low rates and capital project financing for up to 100 years. (Read more on the UVAFinance blog here.)

Besides being long-term thinkers, Richardson sees another common thread with the Treasury and Risk Management team: the staff is made up of people who are comfortable with change and responding to that changing environment.

“It would be difficult to be a creature of habit and be on our team. When you deal in financial markets, you deal in the unknown. Markets go up and down in real time and you have to be nimble,” she says.

She elaborates by pointing out the everyday occurrences that are out of anyone’s control – occurrences like the recent chemical spill at the Battle Building, when the Risk Management team had to respond quickly to mitigate a difficult situation.

Academic pursuits like research, student education, and new programs often take time to come to fruition.  For Treasury and Risk Management both, however, their contributions frequently result in immediate feedback.

 “As soon as the price was set with the bond transactions, we knew we had raised money that was going to be helpful with the strategic plan.  When the team jumped in and handled the situation at the Battle building, there was an immediate impact made,” says Richardson.

Sometimes the difference is a big one, such as Treasury’s work with the Bicentennial Scholar program through the Strategic Investment Fund.  And sometimes it’s a small difference, like schools and departments receiving central assistance with banking needs, such remote deposit being offerred to schools and units. 

At the end of the day, whether the contribution is big or small, Richardson says that she and her staff are driven by knowing they make a difference.

“When your efforts have helped a student financially, saved a department some expenses, or coordinated strategic investment funding, you know you’ve made someone’s life better or easier.”

Learn more about Treasury & Risk Management at UVA:

https://treasurer.virginia.edu/
https://treasurer.virginia.edu/enterprise-risk-management

Record-quick turnaround time locks in record-low rates for UVA

UVA made national news when it executed three bond sales, taking advantage of historically low rates and securing capital project financing for up to 100 years.

Read the full story in UVAToday.

As EVP-COO J. J. Davis mentioned in UVAToday, the sale required a team of UVA leadership and staff to move quickly to "seize the moment."

The team at the Century Bond sale at Barclay's

Before Davis, VP of Finance Melody Bianchetto, and Managing Director of Treasury Julie Richardson headed to New York City to make the historic deals, a flurry of activity, fast-tracked and involving many parties coming together, took place behind the scenes.

"This involved a level of efficiency and coordination we've never been tasked to do before," said Richardson.

"A debt issuance is usually a four-to-five month project, but when the inverted yield curve and other anomalies in the market indicated that we were looking at a historical low that wouldn't be around long, we sped up the process to achieve the low rates."

The result is that what would've normally taken 12 to 16 weeks was done in five, setting records at UVA for being the largest, quickest, and most creative deal ever closed.

What does it take to get such a deal off the ground?  Multiple banking partners to launch ti deal into the market, external legal counsel to draft hundreds of pages of documents for each deal, a financial advisor who committed herself to UVA almost full time for three weeks, a special-called meeting of the Board of Visitors, and multiple hours spent by UVA executives explaining our plan and strategy to our rating agencies to ensure the maintenance of our excellent credit score.

Staff from a variety of departments were integral in the transactions:  Gene Crouch of Treasury led coordination of the Rating Agency presentations and worked on deal structuring; Linda Vannatta of Treasury coordinated commercial paper refunding, debt proceeds, cash flows, and the impact to UVA"s Cash Projection Model; Bill Define of Financial Operations focused on the tax work and keeping UVA compliant with tax law; Richard Carter and Yvonne Metheny set up the accounting infrastructure for the transactions;  and Megan Lowe, Nancy Eagle, and Linda Moon of the EVP-COO office provided unlimited support to Davis and the Team.

Click the image for a larger view.  This chart illustrates all Century Bond
issuances since 1996 -- UVA is all the way to the right with the lowest rate!

Once the deals were put together, the Team traveled to New York for the pricing and allocation of the bonds.

"Many picture capital market transactions as a room full of traders representing buyers and sellers yelling on phones and across the room," says Richardson.

"Trading more electronic now, but with markets fluctuating in real-time, it really can be as hectic as you might imagine."

Richardson said the prospective investors had a number of questions about UVA's internal financial operations and budget.

"Melody and J.J. answered the questions about strategy, governance, and financial operations in a way nobody else could have," she says.

The team found their bonds were in strong demand; Davis, with the guidance of the chair of the BOV finance committee, finalized pricing and buyer orders were confirmed.

Now that she's back in her office, Richardson calls the entire process "exhilarating." 

"We could immediately compare the three transactions to every deal ever done, and we knew we'd not only made history but that what we did would directly contribute to the University's Strategy and Long-Range Plan."

Read more:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-09/universities-join-century-bond-boom-after-rates-tumble-worldwide

https://www.wsj.com/articles/falling-yields-unleash-flood-of-muni-century-bonds-11568367003