Automate corporate actions
You can automate the handling of corporate actions within the system to improve efficiency and accuracy.
Scheduling: Set up a process that scans all securities in the system and executes corporate actions based on their defined payment dates.
On-demand execution: Run the process from FA Back to create the related transactions right away.
The coraporate actions available in the process are:
Coupon payments
Redemptions (partial redemptions and expirations)
Bond calls
Note: For coupons, the system can only generate one coupon per bond security at a time (the next scheduled coupon), not all future coupons.
The following sections describe how to define and schedule corporate actions.
Step 1 - Define bond payment settings
Before creating or running coupon or expiration corporate actions, make sure bonds have payment settings defined in the Security window, Extra info tab in FA Back. For details, see Extra info in FA Back reference.
Step 2 - Define the corporate actions
Configure for the process that runs corporate actions:
Go to Tools → Corporate actions → Create coupons and expirations.
Fill in the fields:
- Enable scheduling
Option to enable scheduling. Tick this checkbox and define the schedule in the Scheduled functions window (see Step 3 - Schedule corporate actions).
- Corporate actions to generate
The corporate action types to generate: coupons, partial redemptions and expirations, or calls). You can select multiple types.
- Run
Date when the corporate action is run, both when scheduling the process and launching it manually. You have the following options:
Never – Never creates corporate action transactions.
On coupon date – Creates corporate action transactions on the coupon record date based on your settings.
Transaction date (ex-div date) – Creates corporate action transactions on the coupon transaction date (date when the coupon payment is made) based on your settings.
Immediately – Creates the corporate action transactions immediately.
- Time (coupon, exp. or call)
The time when the system generates the corporate actions. You can define separate times for coupons, expirations, and calls. Define the time as HH:mm (for example, 15:32).
- Run generated corporate actions against
The portfolios to which transactions are created during corporate action runs. This selection does not affect which corporate actions are created, only the corporate action runs. The system creates corporate actions in the selected portfolios for bonds that are missing them. When the corporate actions are run, the corresponding transactions are then created to the selected portfolios.
- Security types
The security types for which the corporate actions should be generated.
- Days back
The number of days in the past for which the system should check for previous coupons.
- Days forward
The number of days in the future for which the system should check for upcoming coupons.
- Transaction types
The transaction types for transactions to be created.
- Reconciliation days profile key
The key of the custom profile that determines the number of reconciliation days (see Profile definitions in FA Back reference). Reconciliation days are used for certain bonds where coupons are paid out to whomever owned them a certain number of days before the coupon date.
- Assignee
Not used.
- Priority
Not used.
- Due date
Not used.
Proceed to generating corporate actions:
To generate the corporate actions once, click Save and run.
To schedule the corporate actions so the system generates them at specific intervals, click Save and exit and proceed to Step 3 - Schedule corporate actions.
Check the list of corporate actions to be created:
"-" in the Created column indicates that no corporate action exists and it will be created
"X" in the Created column indicates that a corporate action related to the bond is already in the system, so a new one is not created.
Click Done.
The system creates all upcoming transactions to the selected portfolios. You may not see any transactions in the portfolios right away, because generating them takes a moment. Refresh the portfolio after a moment to see the transactions.
Step 3 - Schedule corporate actions
After you defined the settings for creating and running corporate actions, you can schedule the system to generate them at specific intervals:
Go to Tools → Administer → Scheduled functions and select the coupons and expirations corporate action process in the list.
Click Add and fill in the schedule fields (for details, see Scheduling processes in FA Admin guide).
Click Save.
When the corporate actions have been scheduled, you can see the upcoming coupon and expiration runs in the Corporate action view.