Currency Wars: “Beggar Thy Neighbor” Policy
February 12, 2025
In the past couple of decades, banks have started providing a new type of product called the credit card. The credit card is a revolving line of credit which is offered to customers. Customers can use the card to borrow money to make purchases. They are then offered a credit free period. If they are […]
Dividend discount models are amongst the oldest category of valuation models that have been used by the market. However, there are some peculiar characteristics of this model that should be considered before deciding whether or not to use this model. These characteristics have been mentioned in this article. Long Term View: Dividend discount models are […]
The bankruptcy process takes a long period of time to resolve. During this time frame, the company takes the protection of the legal system. The legal system makes provisions for discharging the previous claims on the assets of the company in a fair and equitable manner. However, the bankruptcy process is quite complex. It has […]
The average person believes that they are legally allowed to make any investment that a rich person can. However, this is not true in America, and this is certainly not true in many parts of the developed world. The reality is that the average American population is only legally allowed to purchase securities which are […]
Investment bankers use several different types of methodologies while arriving at the valuation of a company. One of the most commonly used analysis is called precedent transaction analysis. What is Precedent Transaction Analysis? Precedent transaction analysis is a relative valuation methodology, just like comparables analysis. This means that these methodologies do not derive the value […]
Credit enhancement refers to the artificial restructuring of credit products which results in the improvement of its credit rating. In simple words, if a bond being issued by an entity has credit rating BB+, it can use credit enhancement techniques to increase its credit rating to AA+ or so.
There are obvious benefits of using credit enhancement techniques. Some of them have been listed below.
Firstly, from the issuer’s point of view, the benefit is twofold. Firstly, when the credit rating increases, the security becomes palatable to a lot more investors. It is a known fact that many pension funds and mutual funds only invest in AA assets. Hence, when the rating of the assets is increased, it becomes easier to sell the security. This ends up increasing the liquidity of the underlying security.
Secondly, credit enhancement significantly decreases the cost of borrowing. If the size of the issue is large, this could mean substantial dollar savings for the entity involved.
Investors, also benefit from such arrangements. This is because their money is now secured by more than one parties and hence the likelihood of default decreases exponentially.
Since all the parties gain from credit enhancements, they have been widely used in the past few years. Some of the commonly used forms of credit enhancement are as follows:
In such cases, overcollateralization can be used to reduce the cost of borrowing. In order to do so, the deal has to be structured in such a way that the amount of collateral provided exceeds the amount of the loan. For instance, if gold worth $100 is collateralized for a loan of $75, then the interest rate can be reduced. This is because even if the market for gold crashed 25% during the period, the investors could still recover 100% of their money by selling the underlying collateral. Overcollateralization is mostly used by individuals or small companies to lower their cost of borrowing.
Under this arrangement, the issuing company pays a fee to the bank in order to guarantee the payments. Hence as far as the investors are concerned, it is like lending money to the bank which is much safer when compared to lending money to a company. As a result, investors are willing to accept a lower rate of interest. It needs to be understood that guarantees only work if they are issued by banks or other entities that people place trust in. The guarantee will have no meaning if it is issued by another firm whose financials are also questionable. Lastly, it also needs to be understood that the bank does not necessarily have to guarantee the entire loan. A partial guarantee may also be issued, and that will help in reducing the interest rates proportionately.
To sum it up, there are many credit enhancement techniques which are available to the issuer which can help reduce the overall cost of borrowing. This is the reason why there are special intermediaries who exist to facilitate credit enhancement.
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *