Call Protection

  

No, this doesn't prevent your ex from calling you at 3 AM. It has to do with bond purchases.

Some bonds include a provision that makes them "callable." This clause allows the issuer to buy them back on certain pre-specified dates before the maturity date. Issuers put this in place as a protection against falling interest rates. Nobody wants to get stuck paying out a 7% bond when the prevailing rate has fallen to 4%. In this scenario, a callable bond could be repurchased by the issuer and then new bonds sold at the lower rate.

For purchasers, callable bonds are less valuable because you don't know you'll get the full interest rate you've been promised. They could get called in. Usually this means that the interest rate on these bonds has to be a little higher than the going rate, in order to compensate investors for the added call risk.

There's also call protection.

Call protection lives the fine print in the paperwork. When you buy a bond, this language protects the buyer from having the bond called in...for a period of time. A typical call protection bars issuers from calling in a bond during a time period soon after purchase. For instance, the issuer might have to wait at least five years before calling its bonds and issuing cheaper bonds.

Related or Semi-related Video

Finance: What is Forced Conversion?59 Views

00:00

Finance allah shmoop what is forced conversion Okay this is

00:08

forced conversion Yeah this is also forced conversion and so's

00:14

this Yeah that is the issuer of this particular bond

00:19

Like the company who borrowed money has the right as

00:22

described in the indenture to force you to convert the

00:25

bond either into and say twenty five shares of common

00:28

stock or something else Which sort of implies that a

00:31

stock price the over under price of breaking evens about

00:34

forty bucks a share takes you get that thousand dollars

00:37

divided by the twenty five shares Think it's you forty

00:39

bucks a share or the issuer or company who sold

00:43

the bond in the first place can simply call the

00:45

bond and force converted into cash for the small conversion

00:49

premium of ah two point five percent or that's twenty

00:52

five bucks in this thousand dollars par value bond So

00:57

in this sense essentially the break even Numbers actually 41

01:00

dollars a share not forty there because you get an

01:03

extra little premium bump there if they force you to

01:05

convert the bond or debt into equity Got it We'll

01:08

force conversion in a bond sense is usually something cos

01:12

do when they can either refinance the bond at cheaper

01:15

interest rates or are doing so well operationally that they

01:19

have enough cash Teo just retire their debt They call

01:22

it back They buy it back save the interest charges

01:24

and quick cash toe work doing something else Either way

01:27

it's usually weigh less painful than the other flavour of 00:01:30.926 --> [endTime] forced conversion

Up Next

Finance: What is Convertible Debt?
43 Views

What is convertible debt? Convertible debt is a type of bond that’s issued by a corporation. Ownership of these bonds means that the holder has t...

Finance: What are Convertible Bonds?
9 Views

What are Convertible Bonds? Convertible bonds are bonds that have a provision to be converted into equity common shares at a predetermined strike p...

Finance: What is Busted Convertible?
14 Views

What is a Busted Convertible? A busted convertible is a convertible bond that will never be converted to stock because the underlying stock price i...

Find other enlightening terms in Shmoop Finance Genius Bar(f)