56. Objectives and principles of financial risk management
Risks related to financial instruments which the TAURON Group is exposed to, including a description of the exposure and the risk management method are presented in the table below.
| Risk exposure | Risk management | Regulation |
| Credit risk | ||
| Possible loss resulting from the counterparty default on contractual obligations. The credit exposure involves a default risk (the amount that may be lost if a counterparty defaults on its obligations of payment for goods or services) and a replacement risk (the amount that may be lost if a delivery is not made or a service is not provided). | Credit risk management is aimed at limiting losses resulting from the deterioration of the financial situation of the TAURON Group’s counterparties and mitigating the risk of credit exposures at risk of impairment. Commercial transactions of significant value are preceded by an assessment of the counterparty’s creditworthiness, including an economic and financial analysis of the entity. Based on the assessment, the counterparty is granted a credit limit, which is a limit on the maximum credit exposure understood as the amount that may be lost if the counterparty fails to meet its contractual obligations within a specified period of time (taking into account the value of the collateral provided). Credit exposure is calculated for the current day and divided into exposure due to payment and exposure of replacement. The TAURON Group has a decentralised credit risk management system, which means that each risk owner is actively responsible for managing the credit risks that arise within their business scope, but control, monitoring and reporting is performed at the Company-wide level. The TAURON Group’s Credit Risk Management Policy sets out the credit risk management procedures with the view to reduce the impact of the risk on the Group’s strategic objectives. Based on the value of exposure and assessment of financial standing of each client, the value of credit risk to which the TAURON Group is exposed is calculated using statistical methods to determine value at risk based on the total loss probability distribution. |
Policy of credit risk management in TAURON Group |
| Liquidity risk | ||
| Possible loss or limitation of the ability to make payments on a day-to-day basis due to an inappropriate volume or structure of liquid assets as compared to current liabilities or an insufficient level of the actual net proceeds from operating activities. | The liquidity situation of TAURON Capital Group is monitored on an on-going basis in terms of potential deviations against the assumed plans and the availability of external sources of financing whose amount significantly exceeds the expected demand in a short term mitigates the risk of losing liquidity. To this end, the Company applies the rules of determining the liquidity position both of individual companies and the entire TAURON Group which helps ensure funds that would cover any potential liquidity gaps by allocating funds between companies cash-pooling) as well as using external financing. The Company also manages the financing risk, understood as no capability to obtain new funding, an increase in funding costs and the risk of terminating the existing funding agreements. To mitigate the financing risk, the Company’s policy assumes obtaining funding for the TAURON Group in advance of the planned time of use, i.e. up to 12 months prior to the planned demand. The key objective of such policy is to ensure flexible selection of funding source, use favourable market conditions and reduce the risk related to the necessity to contract new liabilities on unfavourable financial terms. |
Liquidity management policy for the TAURON Group |
| Market risk – interest rate and currency risks | ||
| The possibility of an adverse effect on the Group’s performance through fluctuations in the fair value of financial instruments or the related future cash flows, driven by changes in interest rates or foreign exchange rates. | TAURON Group manages currency and interest rate risks on the basis of the TAURON Group Financial Risk Management Policy developed and adopted for use, as well as the Risk Tolerance, the Global Limit for Financial Risk and its decomposition into individual types of financial risk approved by the Management Board. The key objective of such risk management is to minimise the cash flow sensitivity of the TAURON Group to financial risks and to minimize financial costs and costs of hedging with the use of derivative instruments. For interest rate risk hedging transactions and where possible and economically justified, the Company uses derivatives whose characteristics allows the application of hedge accounting. The financial risk management policy of the TAURON Group has also introduced hedge accounting principles which set out the terms and conditions and types of hedge accounting along with the accounting treatment of hedging instruments and hedged items, to be applied as part of hedge accounting under IFRS. |
Financial risk management policy for the TAURON Group |
| Market risk – price risk | ||
| Unplanned volatility of the TAURON Group’s operating result resulting from fluctuations in commodity market prices in individual areas of the TAURON Group’s trading activities. | Effective management is ensured by a commercial risk management system linked in terms of organisation and information with the TAURON Group’s strategy of hedging trading positions. The policy has introduced an early-warning system and risk-exposure limiting system in various trading areas. The basic operational measure of the market risk in the TAURON Group is the Value at Risk measure which determines the maximum allowed change in the value of the position over a given time period and with a given probability. | Commercial risk management policy for the TAURON Group |