George Weston Foods Chooses SunGard’s Kiodex to Support Commodity Hedging Program

George Weston Foods Limited, one of Australia’s largest food companies, has chosen SunGard’s Kiodex to help manage its exposure to commodity price risk. George Weston Foods will use SunGard’s Kiodex to help develop and implement hedging strategies aimed at reducing and managing its exposure to volatile prices in agricultural commodities.

Kiodex will help George Weston Foods to actively manage its commodity risk by helping it to price, capture, and manage financial derivative hedges. Kiodex Risk Workbench is a Web-based commodities risk management solution that integrates trade capture, valuation models, risk measurement, financial reporting, and independent market data. Kiodex Global Market Data includes representative spot prices, forward curves, volatilities, volatility skews and correlations across the spectrum of commodity markets. George Weston Foods leveraged the Kiodex Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform for rapid implementation.

Hugh Robertson, strategic sourcing managerat George Weston Foods Limited, said, “SunGard’s Kiodex risk management solution with integrated market data appears well suited to help us manage our agricultural commodity exposure. The combination of its commodity specific models, mark-to-market, P&L and cash flow-at-risk (CFaR) reports, and fast implementation, made Kiodex the right decision. Kiodex will support our hedging program optimization, provide transparency of trade prices, manage our cash flow at risk, and monitor the success of our program versus our goals. To date, the Kiodex team has shown a high level of insight into the risk management challenges facing a buyer of soft commodities.”

Ben Jackson, chief operating officer of SunGard’s Kiodex business unit, said, “SunGard’s Kiodex helps our corporate customers around the globe to efficiently manage earnings volatility through precise commodity risk management. Kiodex’s SaaS framework made it possible to implement the system rapidly, and to automate processes, which will help George Weston Foods quickly and accurately price hedging strategies. Also, the independent valuation provided by our unique market data set will help George Weston meets its audit requirements"