Valutariskhantering vid exportaffärer : - en studie av stora svenska exportföretag

Abstract Business, or business decisions always involves an endangerment from the company’s aspect, but when it comes to business with foreign countries the risk profile looks quite different from the profile the company has when its doing business inside the country. Therefore, it is extremely important for an export company or import company to carefully consider the risks that are enclosed with the deal, before he makes the decision to enter a deal. One of the most important risks a company have to considerate when doing business with foreign countries is the currency risk. A company is exposed to currency risk when either long-term or short-term changes in the exchange rate may affect the result of the company, competitive position and growth. Those companies that are exposed to currency risks should take such action that will minimise these risks and thus avoid negative effects on the company’s result and growth. In practise, this is filled with both complexity and difficulties. For example, there are both internal and external restrictions that limits the company’s possibilities to effectively manage currency risks. The Swedish export has the past years had a significant increase. This increase also means that the Swedish companies have to, even more, consider their chose of currency risk management method, because of the more exposure to currency risks. The purpose of this essay is to describe which currency risk management methods and derivative securities large Swedish export companies use in practise when doing business with foreign countries, and also to examine the reason to the companies choice of derivative security. To answer the purpose with the essay there has been done a qualitative survey by personal interviews with respondents from six of Sweden’s largest export companies, considering the company’s turnover. The theories that have been used consider currency risks and currency risk management, and also the aspects that can affect a company’s choice of derivative security. The conclusions that have been drawn after analysing the empirical material of the survey, are that all companies principally manage their currency risk exposure with currency forwards. The majority also uses currency swaps to a grate extent, while currency options are used within limits. The reason that the companies mostly use forwards is mainly that they bring a much smaller expense to the company, comparing to for example currency options