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609-006-1
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07
March 08
Upper limit
Annual Spend 08
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This case was written by INSEAD Professors Paul Kleindorfer and Enver Ycesan, in cooperation with the Supply
Management Lead Team of Unilever Corporation. The issues raised here are purely for educational purposes and
are not intended to illustrate either effective or ineffective management of an administrative situation
Copyright 2009 INSEAD
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609-006-1
The Supply Management Leadership Team (SMLT) at Unilever brought together the heads
of key procurement areas such as oils and fats, plastics, cocoa, and milk powder at Unilever.
The SMLT was preparing for a special meeting in Zurich in a month to discuss possible
changes to its risk management tactics and strategy. The mood among team members was
unusually somber. In the past few months, commodity prices had defied all the laws of
gravity by jumping to historically high levels. Uwe Schulte, Vice President of Global Supply
Management, had asked his team to come up with innovative approaches to commodity
procurement that would provide a better understanding, and perhaps some mitigation, of
Unilevers exposure to the increased volatility of market prices. The presentations of the risk
management proposals by the plastics team was the top agenda item for the meeting, but it
was understood that every one of Unilevers major commodity purchases would be subject to
a similar review over the next few months. Given the developments of the past few months,
the focus was on understanding and managing the risk of large swings in procurement
expenditures. How to do this without sacrificing buying performance and a dependable
physical supply to Unilevers manufacturing facilities would be the centerpiece of the SMLT
meeting and discussion.
Unilever
Unilever was a global giant in food and personal care products. Operating in 150 countries
with 206,000 employees, its turnover was 39.7 billion euros in 2005. Figure 1 shows the
distribution of its activities across different categories and different regions.
Beverages
8%
Ice Cr eam and
Asia/Africa
26%
Home Care
18%
Fr ozen Food
Spr eads
16%
11%
Europe
41%
Savor y &
Dr essings
21%
26%
Americas
33%
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In a press release1, Patrick Cescau, Unilevers CEO, laid out an ambitious agenda:
We now need to drive harder to build a winning portfolio by extending our
leadership positions and our presence in high growth spaces. At the same time,
we are improving our consumer marketing and customer development to deliver
outstanding execution. Bringing all this together as One Unilever will ensure
that we capitalize on both our local roots and global scale. This strategy will
enable us to grow ahead of our markets with sustainable margin improvement. I
am confident that this will lead to sustainable underlying sales growth of 3-5%
and an operating margin in excess of 15% by 2010.
SMLT
Unilever was organized upon three pillars: categories, regions, and functions. The Supply
Management (SM) organization, which was responsible for global procurement, was part of
the Supply Chain Management function. SCMs mission was to build one supply network
from shelf to supplier, which leveraged Unilevers scale and delivered competitive solutions
to customers and consumers. The organizational structure is depicted in Figure 2. SMLT
consisted of the heads of the regions and of key spend categories such as chemicals, food
ingredients, and packaging.
Globally responsible
for SM on behalf of UL
SCLT
UEx Sponsor
John Rice
SCLT Sponsor
Greg Polcer
HPC
Category
FOODS
Category
FINANCE
Function
SMLT
CHEMNET
Henk Sijbring
VP Chemicals Network/
HPC Category Contact
R
e
g
I
o
n
s
PACKNET
INGNET
Uwe G Schulte
Jan-Jelle vd Meer
VP Packaging Network
VP Global SM
Dir Ingredients
Network Foods
NPI
Peter Pick
VP NPI
David Beauchamp/
Guenther Buck (O&F)
EUROPE
Marco Gonalves
AMERICAS
Umesh Shah
ASIA
6
global
teams
7 global
teams
6
global
teams
3
global
CoPs
Krish Maharaj
AMET
3 August 2006
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SM had several guiding principles. With respect to the supply base, it strived to achieve
competitive costs, be the innovation partner of choice and a professional business partner.
With respect to the downstream supply chain, SM aimed at delivering superior customer
service. Under Uwe Schultes leadership, the SMLT also considered efficient risk
management part of its mandate, and the new initiative on managing market risk for major
commodity groups was a central aspect of this element of SMLTs responsibilities.
Commodity Characteristics
SM purchased a wide range of commodities, including food ingredients (such as sugar,
powdered milk, cocoa, wheat, and various oils and fats); chemical products (such as lab,
caustic soda, and alcohol sulphates); packaging materials (such as plastics, aluminum, and
corrugated cardboard); as well as energy (such as electricity and natural gas). The total
annual spend under SMs responsibility was several billion euros but the profit consequences
of a dependable supply at predictable prices clearly went well beyond the direct impact of its
annual spend. Indeed, the sharp rise (Figure 3) and increased volatility (Figure 4) in
commodity prices had drawn a lot of attention to SMs activities and further heightened the
pressure to improve profitability following a few disappointing quarters for all the major
companies in the food industry and the resulting stock market reactions. In the context of this
dual pressure, SMLT decided to evaluate alternative risk mitigation strategies for its sizeable
commodity procurement business.
600
400
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
-200
2000
0
1999
mn
200
-400
-600
-800
Figure 3: Year-on-Year Change in Commodity Procurement (constant volumes)
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80%
Tallow
Dairy EU
60%
Dairy NA
Alkoxylated
40%
Resins
LAB/LAS
O&F
20%
0%
1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006
-20%
-40%
Cluster
Natural Gas EU
Dairy ingredients EU
Cocoa
Dairy NA
PAS/AE/LES
Plastics
LAB/LAS
Oils & Fats
Maximum
historic
annual price
volatility
30%
25%
30%
30%
25%
25%
60%
25%
Parallel Financial
market?
Limited OTC
No
LME, OTC
CME, limited
No
LME (limited) + OTC
OTC
CBOT + OTC
Tools available
Swaps
Futures + Options
Futures+Options
Futures + Swaps
Swaps
Futures
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Plastics
Plastics for containers come in many sizes and grades, but the underlying chemical
components remain the same, with the basic chemicals (referred to as resins) being highdensity polyethylene (HDPE), polypropylene (PP) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET).
While SM did not purchase these resins directly, its suppliers of plastic containers did, and
they passed on the cost of these resins to SM via the price of the plastic containers it
purchased. SM was a major consumer of plastic bottles and lids to package Unilevers
products, spending around 400 million euros on plastics in 2006. Price volatility peaked at
25% within the year.
In spite of a complex supply chain, as depicted in Figure 5, plastics were highly
commoditized. As a key commodity, the global over-the-counter plastics trade was quite
transparent with well developed parallel financial markets since the price of both PP and
HDPE was highly correlated with the price of their raw materials, namely crude oil and
natural gas. This suggested that hedging instruments for plastics spend could be either
directly in HDPE, PP or PET, or through positions in the underlying raw materials of crude
oil and natural gas.
SM purchased bottles and lids from dedicated suppliers in each of its major sales regions.
Bottle blowers closely followed crude oil prices and resulting resin prices before adding their
own margins on the product. Due to product volumes, shipping was also quite expensive.
SMs strategy for this category was to achieve price stability. Unfortunately, market
forecasts were far from accurate. This, in turn, triggered SMs interest in pursuing parallel
risk management opportunities, both as a possible source of risk hedging as well as to
improve the quality of the information underlying SMs decisions regarding sourcing and
contracting for plastics.
Others: L(L)DPE/PVC/MEG/PET
95%
Natural
Gas
80%
Ethylene
Ethane
20%
HDPE
0.32t
Crude
oil
95%
0.16t
Naphtha (1t)
Propylene
PP
0.10t
Aromatics
Transport/
fuel
60%
PTA/DMT
Gasoline additives +
(polyester) fiber/PET
others
Reds show
competing
markets for
feedstock use
Various markets outside the resin market affect resin prices. Crude oil (energy and
transportation) is the most prominent affecting both PP and HDPE.
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Figure 6 shows the structure and complexity of SMs plastics hedging problem. For a
specific region, the problem begins with aggregate end product demand for different bottles
and containers, as determined by Unilevers market forecast. These, in turn, imply ex ante
demand for different resins (HDPE, PP, PET) in the periods t = 1, , T (think of these as
quarters). The basic question confronting the SMLT in terms of hedging strategies was
whether to take positions (i.e., buy swaps and other derivative instruments from brokers or
directly on the London LIFFE or other exchanges) in crude oil (an indirect hedge) or in the
resins themselves. At this juncture SMLT was not interested in changing its physical
sourcing of plastics from its direct plastics manufacturers, but only in understanding the cost
and value of various hedging strategies.
Final Product
Demands
D1t
D2t
Dmt
Correlations
Correlations
Crude
Oil
Price
HDPEt
PETt
PPt
Market
Traded
Resins
Resin
Demands
As an example, Table 2 summarizes demand and mean prices for three demand regions (NE,
SE and West) in the North American market for HDPE for the four quarters of 2006 (as
forecast at the beginning of 2006). The standard deviation of HDPE demand in each quarter
was expected to be about 10% and the standard deviation of the price was expected to be
about 25% of mean price, with strong correlation of prices across regional suppliers. During
2006, based on futures contracts trading on 1/1/06, the average price for Brent crude oil was
expected to be $65.32 per barrel (with a standard quarterly deviation of $6.17). For the same
period, the correlation between crude oil prices and that of resins was around 0.65.
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Quarter 1
Quarter 2
Quarter 3
Quarter 4
Demand-NE
15,557
16,159
14,532
16,858
Demand-SE
16,550
16,734
14,985
15,485
Demand-We
19,150
17,810
18,283
18,895
Price-NE
1,211
1,304
1,405
1,626
Price-SE
1,309
1,341
1,521
1,517
Price-We
1,119
1,260
1,378
1,578
Table 2: 2006 Demand Volumes (metric tons) & Prices ($/ton) Over 4 Quarters
The challenge for the SMLT was clear enough: Should they engage in risk hedging activity
for their plastics resins, possibly including taking positions in crude oil? The analysis
presented by the Plastics Team (see Exhibit 2) seemed to suggest that even a small portion of
about 1% of total spend on HDPE could lead to significant reductions in maximum
expenditures on HDPE in North America (and, by extension, to other plastics resins and other
regional markets).
But there were a number of central issues yet to consider. Was this financial approach to
hedging cash flows the right approach for the Unilever Supply Management group? Should
the same approach be extended to other resins and, if so, with what benefits? Should the
SMLT be the one to implement this approach or should it be done by Unilever Treasury?
What controls should be put in place to make sure that the hedging that was done was limited
to the specific purpose of improving SMs performance, and not for speculative purposes?
What benefits, if any, would information provided by this hedging strategy bring to
improving buying performance and contracting with respect to ULs plastics purchases?
As Uwe Schulte went through the materials for the coming SMLT meeting, he couldnt help
but think this was a whole new game as far as supply management was concerned.
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Appendix 1
Risk Mitigation Instruments and Supply Portfolios2
Payoff/Profit
12
10
Probability of
Terminal Price
Pay
6
4
Stri
Pro
0
0
10
12
14
16
18
Terminal Price
20
SWAPS
A swap is an agreement whereby a floating (market or spot) price is exchanged for a fixed
price over a specified period. A swap buyer pays the fixed leg and receives the floating leg.
A swap seller pays the floating leg and receives the fixed leg.
Swaps are financial
agreements but they essentially assure (for the contracted volume of the swap) that the swap
buyer will pay the exact price of the swap for the commodity in question. The effectiveness
of swaps is summarized in Figure 9.
For further details on available instruments and risk management strategies, see Aswath Damodaran,
Strategic Risk Taking, Wharton School Publishing, 2008.
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Suppose
there is
UL Spend
Floating Index
correlation
for Plastic
e.g., for
Resins
Crude Oil
Crude Oil
Swap at Price
Ps
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Description of Context
Examples
Energy
Commodity metals
The standard problem of commodity sourcing and hedging for a large buyer like UL can be
stated as maximizing expected profits, subject to physical delivery constraints and some risk
constraints. The general structure of the Supply Portfolio Problem (SPP) is as follows:
Supply Portfolio Problem (SPP)
Maximize Expected Profits (where the decision choices are the amounts to contract for from
each available physical and financial contract)
Subject to:
Financial risk constraints (on maximum exposures or on allowable losses from financial
instruments used for hedging)
Constraints defining the instruments themselves (puts, calls, swaps, contract parameters
such as minimum take provisions and flexibility bands, etc.)
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This optimization problem is not solved once and for all but on a continuing basis. At the
same time, demand uncertainties are resolved, as well as spot prices and contract prices. To
the extent that contracts allow flexibility in execution (e.g., call or put options), these are
executed to optimize profits on the day by executing all options that are in the money or
needed for physical fulfillment. This problem on the day can sometimes be interesting, but
in theory it is straightforward and solved by some computer-based algorithm that picks the
best options on the day to execute for both physical coverage and financial return. The more
interesting problem, which requires both judgment and computer support, is the medium to
long-term, on-going Supply Portfolio Problem (SPP). Various forms of the SPP have been
developed for various types of markets, and the details of these differ considerably across
these markets. Except in very simple cases, the solution to the SPP must be accomplished
using Monte Carlo simulation (together with a simulation optimization engine). We illustrate
this below for the plastics problem for UL North America.
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Appendix 2
The Initial Risk Management Plan for Plastics
Jan-Jelle Van der Meer, responsible for procurement of food ingredients for the SMLT, had
taken a strong interest in the commodities risk management project and Uwe Schulte had
charged him to guide the initial effort on plastics. Van der Meer had a doctorate in chemical
engineering and over several months of preparatory work had overseen the development of
an analytic framework to guide the Plastics Team. The resulting framework entailed the
following analysis process:
Start with product and market structure and determine the pattern of procurement and
correlated markets that could provide risk management hedges.
Analyze historical data to obtain relevant random variables (demand, price, and
correlations) and the associated predicted Spend (total expenses for sourcing and
delivering the relevant quantities to production sites).
For a given pattern of procurement choices, which gives rise to the unhedged
probability distribution of Spend, analyze risk management overlays that could (at a
cost) reduce right tail spend-at-risk (SaR) exposure.
Determine the efficient frontier that trades off increased total Spend against
decreased right hand tail exposure or SaR.
As an example of this process, the Plastics Team presented their results for ULs North
American expenditures on HDPE. The team used 2006 market data throughout, but they
assumed they were at the beginning of 2006 and planning a procurement strategy for that
year. Alternative portfolios were evaluated in terms of the total expected spend on HDPE,
including the cost of any hedge instruments used. Also of interest were exceedance
probabilities for various upper limits (or targets) on total annual spend for HDPE-NA.
A simple simulation in Crystal Ball was constructed to evaluate various risk hedging
strategies for the NA HDPE spend. Below are the results for the fourth quarter of 2006,
based on the mean values of price and demand quantities at the beginning of 2006. Table 4
shows the assumptions underlying the simulation (all distributions were tested and found to
be well approximated by the log-normal distribution). Table 5 shows the results of using just
HDPE call options and Table 6 shows the results of using HDPE call options plus Brent
crude oil swaps in the indicated amounts. In each case, both the hedged and unhedged
(expected value of) Spend are shown. The unhedged value is simply in the cash outlay for
HDPE by UL in the market. The Hedged Spend is this cash outlay for procurement
adjusted by the cashflows (positive or negative) resulting from the hedge instruments
purchased. A number of other combinations of calls and swaps could also be considered, but
these two examples illustrate the general consequences of hedging in this case, which can be
summarized as follows.
Hedging costs money: The expected value of Spend will be greater than if one did not buy
hedging instruments because (on average) no financial broker or investor will take the other
side of these market instruments without some expectation of profit. Note, for example, in
Table 5 below, that the expected cost of the HDPE call options is $360,000. Of course, the
large standard deviation of the value of these call options also tells us that they are in the
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money some of the time (and given their structure, we know that this occurs when the price
of HDPE is high and therefore these options help to offset high HDPE prices).
Hedging cuts off the right hand tail of the spend distribution: Both the standard deviation and
the probability that (Spend + Hedging Costs) exceeds a given target threshold will decrease
as hedge instruments are purchased. This is, of course, the primary purpose of hedging.
Note, for example, in Table 5, that the HDPE call options reduce the probability of exceeding
the target spend figure of $100 million from 0.093 to 0.076. They also reduce the probability
of exceeding the target spend figure of $110 million from .013 to .006. There are further
reductions in the furthest extremes of the spend distribution since it is precisely for these
values that the HDPE call options are clearly in the money. (To see these reductions in the
extremes, check the distribution of Spend versus Hedged Spend in the Crystal Ball output.)
The effectiveness of swaps depends on their correlation with the underlying spend: For
example, the assumption of 0.65 correlation (not that high!) between crude oil and NA HDPE
prices means that crude oil swaps are not that good a hedge for HDPE price volatility in the
present case. Indeed it is clear that the crude oil swap hedge here is actually less effective
than the HDPE call options alone in reducing the right hand tail of the HDPE Spend
distribution (compare 0.76 vs. 0.78 in Tables 4-5 in reducing the exceedance probability for a
Target of $100 MM), primarily because these swap options are too expensive relative to their
risk hedging benefits (note that buying 50,000 swaps at the indicated swap price has an
expected cost of $220,000). Of course, if a more attractive swap price were available, then
such swaps could play a role in an efficient hedging strategyhere they clearly do not.
Mean
Std Deviation
55,000.00
4,400.00
$68.00
$6.00
$1,594.00
$106.00
0.65
$28.25
$1,650.00
$72.50
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Mean
Std Dev
87.74
9.23
88.10
8.24
0.00
0.00
-0.36
2.25
0.093
0.076
0.013
0.006
Table 5: UL HDPE NA 4th Quarter 2006 Spend (as predicted on 1/1/2006) Hedging
Strategy: 50,000 Call Options in HDPE CMAI NA Spot Underlying
(Prices per Table 4)
Mean
Std Dev
87.74
9.23
88.32
8.25
-0.22
0.30
-0.36
2.25
0.093
0.078
0.013
0.006
Table 6: UL HDPE NA 4th Quarter 2006 Spend (as predicted on 1/1/2006) Hedging
Strategy: 50,000 Call Options in HDPE CMAI NA Spot Underlying and 50,000 Crude
Oil Swaps on NYFE (Prices per Table 4)
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