Liabilities that are part of reverse factoring agreements are evaluated to determine whether the original trade payable must still be reported or whether it must be derecognized and a new financial liability recognized in accordance with the agreement. The decisive factor is whether the Lenzing Group was released from its original obligation. In cases where there was no release from the original obligation, the Lenzing Group evaluates whether the reverse factoring agreement has led to a new obligation that must be recognized in addition to the trade payable. If that is also not the case, a present value test is carried out to determine whether the reverse factoring agreement has resulted in significant changes to the contractual terms of the trade payable which lead to derecognition of the trade payable and the recognition of a new financial liability.
Suppliers of the Lenzing Group finance their trade receivables from the Lenzing Group with reverse factoring agreements. These suppliers can commission their banks to forward payment for the receivables at an earlier point in time. The present value test indicates that these agreements do not significantly change the contract terms (in particular payment terms and interest rates). The agreements do not lead to the reclassification of the involved trade payables to another class of liability under civil law or IFRS regulations from the Lenzing Group’s perspective. Consequently, there are no changes to the presentation on the consolidated statement of financial position (under trade payables) or the consolidated statement of cash flows (under cash flow from operating activities). The potentially affected trade payables totaled EUR 81,177 thousand as at December 31, 2023 (December 31, 2022: EUR 116,391 thousand). The carrying amount of the potentially affected trade payables for which the suppliers have already received payments from the banks stands at EUR 65,349 thousand (December 31, 2022: EUR 87,881 thousand). As in the previous year, the Lenzing Group has not provided any collateral.
The liquidity risk of the reverse factoring agreements consists of a concentration since the reverse factoring agreements currently in place have been made with only two financial institutions, giving rise to the risk of a revocation of the reverse factoring agreement by the same financial institution. The liabilities affected by these reverse factoring agreements are settled in accordance with the agreed due date. The related, estimated outflows are taken into account in liquidity planning. The Lenzing Group assesses the risk concentration with regard to sufficient financing sources as rather low because the risk spread of the Lenzing Group’s financing over different financial institutions is maintained. Furthermore, the reverse factoring agreements include no material financing component and their discontinuation would therefore also not result in a significant increase in financing requirements. Liabilities relating to reverse factoring agreements amount to 3.3 percent as at the reporting date (December 31, 2022: 5.0 percent) relative to the group’s total financial liabilities.
Information regarding the liquidity and foreign currency risk of the group exposure is presented in note 37.