SunGard signs Lafarge to Kiodex
SunGard announced today that Lafarge, a world leader in building materials based in Paris, France, has implemented SunGard's Kiodex Risk Workbench, a Web-based commodities risk management solution that integrates deal capture, valuation models, risk measurement, financial reporting and independent market data.
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Kiodex's fully-integrated market data includes market prices, volatilities, volatility skews and correlations across the spectrum of commodities.
Lafarge uses Kiodex to price and capture trades, generate reports and manage the settlement of financial derivatives on refined products, natural gas, crude oil and sea freight markets. The selection of SunGard's Kiodex by Lafarge illustrates the need for global industrial companies to better manage their exposure to volatile commodity prices by implementing a software solution that can help them to price, capture and manage financial derivative hedges in a more robust and accurate way.
Lafarge replaced cumbersome spreadsheets with SunGard's Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)-based Kiodex solution, gaining a more streamlined processing and control environment and more sophisticated pricing and risk management tools. Kiodex additionally helps Lafarge demonstrate a secure and more accurate audit trail.
Stephane Solere, head of treasury risk management at Lafarge, said, "As a SaaS-based platform, Kiodex was quickly and easily implemented. It provides a seamless front-to-back workflow, with instant access to market data, reporting and settlement of derivatives. Kiodex's provision of market data offers us price quotes and hedge consumption of various products, while its commodity-specific models help us to streamline the process of generating mark-to-market, P&L and cash flow-at-risk (CFaR) reports. It helps the treasury risk management team to meet the new shortened deadlines for quarterly closing."
Benjamin Jackson, chief operating officer of SunGard's Kiodex business unit, said, ""Kiodex's SaaS framework made it possible for Lafarge to implement the system quickly, and to automate processes, which will help Lafarge to improve speed and accuracy in pricing hedging strategies, and to capture opportunities."