In corporate finance, a debenture is a medium- to long-term debt instrument used by large companies to borrow money, at a fixed rate of interest. The legal term "debenture" originally referred to a document that either creates a debt or acknowledges it, but in some countries the term is now used interchangeably with bond, loan stock or note. A debenture is thus like a certificate of loan or a loan bond evidencing the fact that the company is liable to pay a specified amount with interest and although the money raised by the debentures becomes a part of the company's capital structure, it does not become share capital. Senior debentures get paid before subordinate debentures, and there are varying rates of risk and payoff for these categories.
In finance, a warrant is a security that entitles the holder to buy the underlying stock of the issuing company at a fixed price called exercise price until the expiry date.
In finance, an equity derivative is a class of derivatives whose value is at least partly derived from one or more underlying equity securities. Options and futures are by far the most common equity derivatives, however there are many other types of equity derivatives that are actively traded.
A swaption is an option granting its owner the right but not the obligation to enter into an underlying swap. Although options can be traded on a variety of swaps, the term "swaption" typically refers to options on interest rate swaps.
Preferred stock is a form of stock which may have any combination of features not possessed by common stock including properties of both an equity and a debt instrument, and is generally considered a hybrid instrument. Preferred stocks are senior to common stock, but subordinate to bonds in terms of claim and may have priority over common stock in the payment of dividends and upon liquidation. Terms of the preferred stock are described in the issuing company's articles of association or articles of incorporation.
Fixed income refers to any type of investment under which the borrower or issuer is obliged to make payments of a fixed amount on a fixed schedule. For example, the borrower may have to pay interest at a fixed rate once a year, and to repay the principal amount on maturity. Fixed-income securities can be contrasted with equity securities – often referred to as stocks and shares – that create no obligation to pay dividends or any other form of income.
A corporate bond is a bond issued by a corporation in order to raise financing for a variety of reasons such as to ongoing operations, M&A, or to expand business. The term is usually applied to longer-term debt instruments, with maturity of at least one year. Corporate debt instruments with maturity shorter than one year are referred to as commercial paper.
Convertible arbitrage is a market-neutral investment strategy often employed by hedge funds. It involves the simultaneous purchase of convertible securities and the short sale of the same issuer's common stock.
In finance, a bond option is an option to buy or sell a bond at a certain price on or before the option expiry date. These instruments are typically traded OTC.
In structured finance, a structured product, also known as a market-linked investment, is a pre-packaged investment strategy based on a single security, a basket of securities, options, indices, commodities, debt issuance or foreign currencies, and to a lesser extent, derivatives. The variety of products just described is demonstrative of the fact that there is no single, uniform definition of a structured product. A feature of some structured products is a "principal guarantee" function, which offers protection of principal if held to maturity. For example, an investor invests $100, the issuer simply invests in a risk-free bond that has sufficient interest to grow to $100 after the five-year period. This bond might cost $80 today and after five years it will grow to $100. With the leftover funds the issuer purchases the options and swaps needed to perform whatever the investment strategy calls for. Theoretically an investor can just do this themselves, but the cost and transaction volume requirements of many options and swaps are beyond many individual investors.
Hybrid securities are a broad group of securities that combine the characteristics of the two broader groups of securities, debt and equity.
In finance, a lattice model is a technique applied to the valuation of derivatives, where a discrete time model is required. For equity options, a typical example would be pricing an American option, where a decision as to option exercise is required at "all" times before and including maturity. A continuous model, on the other hand, such as Black–Scholes, would only allow for the valuation of European options, where exercise is on the option's maturity date. For interest rate derivatives lattices are additionally useful in that they address many of the issues encountered with continuous models, such as pull to par. The method is also used for valuing certain exotic options, where because of path dependence in the payoff, Monte Carlo methods for option pricing fail to account for optimal decisions to terminate the derivative by early exercise., though methods now exist for solving this problem.
Constant proportion portfolio insurance (CPPI) is a trading strategy that allows an investor to maintain an exposure to the upside potential of a risky asset while
providing a capital guarantee against downside risk. The outcome of the CPPI strategy is somewhat similar to that of buying a call option, but does not use option contracts. Thus CPPI is sometimes referred to as a convex strategy, as opposed to a "concave strategy" like constant mix.
An equity-linked note (ELN) is a debt instrument, usually a bond, that differs from a standard fixed-income security in that the final payout is based on the return of the underlying equity, which can be a single stock, basket of stocks, or an equity index. Equity-linked notes are a type of structured products.
In finance, an option is a contract which gives the buyer the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell an underlying asset or instrument at a specified strike price prior to or on a specified date, depending on the form of the option. The strike price may be set by reference to the spot price of the underlying security or commodity on the day an option is taken out, or it may be fixed at a discount or at a premium. The seller has the corresponding obligation to fulfill the transaction – to sell or buy – if the buyer (owner) "exercises" the option. An option that conveys to the owner the right to buy at a specific price is referred to as a call; an option that conveys the right of the owner to sell at a specific price is referred to as a put. Both are commonly traded, but the call option is more frequently discussed.
A reverse convertible security or convertible security is a short-term note linked to an underlying stock. The security offers a steady stream of income due to the payment of a high coupon rate. In addition, at maturity the owner will receive either 100% of the par value or, if the stock value falls, a predetermined number of shares of the underlying stock. In the context of structured product, a reverse convertible can be linked to an equity index or a basket of indices. In such case, the capital repayment at maturity is cash settled, either 100% of principal, or less if the underlying index falls conditional on barrier is hit in the case of barrier reverse convertibles.
An embedded option is a component of a financial bond or other security, and usually provides the bondholder or the issuer the right to take some action against the other party. There are several types of options that can be embedded into a bond. Some common types of bonds with embedded options include callable bond, puttable bond, convertible bond, extendible bond, exchangeable bond, and capped floating rate note. A bond may have several options embedded if they are not mutually exclusive.
BNP Paribas Corporate and Institutional Banking (CIB) is the global investment banking arm of BNP Paribas, the largest banking group in the world. In October 2010, BNP Paribas was ranked by Bloomberg and Forbes as the largest bank and largest company in the world by assets with over US$3.1 trillion. BNP Paribas CIB's main centres are in Paris and London, with large scale operations in New York, Hong Kong, and Singapore, and smaller operations in almost every financial centre in the world. It employs 185,000 people across 56 countries and provides financing, advisory and capital markets services. BNP Paribas CIB is a globally recognised leader in two areas of expertise: trading derivatives on all asset classes, and structured financing. BNP Paribas CIB also has a large corporate advisory network in Europe and Asia. BNP Paribas CIB has 13,000 clients, consisting of companies, financial institutions, governments, investment funds and hedge funds.
A contingent convertible bond (CoCo), also known as an enhanced capital note (ECN) is a fixed-income instrument that is convertible into equity if a pre-specified trigger event occurs. The concept of CoCo has been particularly discussed in the context of crisis management in the banking industry. It has been also emerging as an alternative way for keeping solvency in the insurance industry.
