Okay, there’s a joke about The Inquisition in here somewhere. Or maybe something about Cossacks and 17th century Russia. Or maybe a King Henry thing.
But yeah...all different kind of, uh...conversion.
Way more pedantically, a company might be having a hard time selling or issuing its bonds to Wall Street. In order for them to close the deal, with their stock trading today at 25 bucks a share, they might say, "well…these bonds are convertible into 20 shares of our stock." That is, a single thousand dollar unit of that bond would convert into 20 shares, which would then value the shares at 50 bucks, which would be sorta the over/under price at which bond holders would start to seriously look at converting.
Why would a company offer convertible bonds instead of just…ya know…bonds?
Well, if they were stuck paying 6% interest on just bonds, but really wanted to only pay 4%, they might get the interest rate discount by throwing in that equity kicker...in the bonds having the convertibility feature. Yes, they would suffer dilution at 50 bucks a share, but that price is double where the stock is today, so the company is probably thinking that it wouldn’t mind some dilution from these bonds being converted waaay up there.
And remember: the bonds pay the 4% interest along the way...until they are converted. The moment those bonds are converted into equity, the debt on the balance sheet of the company (and its obligation to pay that 4% a year interest) goes away fully.
They print 20 more shares for each bond converted, and yes, those shares may pay a dividend…but as far as the convertible bonds go, they are thereafter converted.
And saved. Hallelujah.
Related or Semi-related Video
Finance: What is Convertible Debt?43 Views
finance a la shmoop. what is convertible debt? okay so we presume you
know what debt is. if not go uh you know watch that video. we'll wait actually no [man smiles at camera]
we won't wait. so convertible debt is just normal debt
but with one potentially highly valuable added feature. its convertible into
something else. well we were Marvel superheroes that would be our superpower.
you know finance man or something like that.
anyway example time. drone Ranger Inc needs money to upgrade a factory so that
it can produce drones that don't just fly, they swim too. like Aquaman. Alright well
prevailing interest rates for its level of risk and credit worthiness are 7%. the
company needs to raise a hundred million bucks, and the idea of paying seven [graph shown]
million dollars a year for that debt is just too high a price, so the CEO boss
says no .no new factory for you but if the company could get the debt cheaper
well then she might run bulk. unfortunately the company's stock trades
today at a very low multiple of earnings. only 15 times the dollar share they'll
earn this year. so I don't want to raise the hundred million dollars by selling
equity. it would be dilutive to do so, meaning that they would have to print
too many shares to raise that hundred million dollars, specifically a hundred [Dilution defined]
million divided by 15 or six and a half-ish million shares. well some of the
company's investors or rather all of them believe that the company's stock is
and or will be worth more per share than it is today at some point in the future.
otherwise they wouldn't own the stock today, right?
so the wily CFO of the company wonders if there's a Miley Cyrus style best of
both worlds solution here where you could sell equity at a higher price in
the future in part for a price decline on the cost of renting the debt. and in [Cyrus shown swinging across screen]
fact there is and yeah you guessed that it's called a convertible bond, or
convertible debt. yeah different kind of conversion there.
all right well the drone rangers stock is 15 bucks a share today but through
careful negotiated back-and-forth with capital markets people at an investment
bank, the company learns that there actually is demand for its debt price to
pay only 3% interest. if that debt is convertible into equity at 30 bucks a
share. so what does that mean? well if the stock stays under 30 bucks so pretty [definitions on screen]
much forever, then the buyers of the debt or the lenders of the money to the
company got taken. that is they only got three percent interest on their money
when they should have gotten seven percent for loaning money as debt to the
company. but if the stock takes off and the over water underwater drones really
you know fly off the shelves, then the convertibility feature of the
debt will be exercised or used which would be a good thing. so the debt is
convertible at 30 bucks a share which means that a hundred million dollars
raised would cause the company to be diluted a hundred billion divided by 30
bucks, or you know 3.3 ish million shares, I eat it's half the dilution it would [equations]
have been at the company just sold shares at 15 bucks each.
it essentially wrote a call option to the buyers of the debt to be able to
call or buy its stock for 30 bucks a share or 30 times the current year's
earnings at some point you know whenever in the future. like being diluted at 30
times earnings is way less painful than being diluted at 15 times.
so yeah that's convertible debt in a nutshell. not what you find yourself in
during your midlife crisis when you desperately feel the urge to buy a [woman races by in sports car]
silver Beamer that cost three times our annual salary yeah. been there it was a
nice Beamer
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