The provinces and the national government have resorted to printing exchangeable bonds funny money.
And the architects of the bonds, mostly foreign investment banks such as Société Générale, which structured around one-fifth of the EB issues last year, have also made a mint.At least one medium-sized broker, Ichiyoshi Securities, flatly refuses to sell exchangeable bonds to its customers, fearing a backlash.
Or perhaps the firms calculate that the most profitable strategy is to support the market in exchangeable bonds, and so leave money in investors' pockets for the next mugging.
Fiat, a troubled car-maker, has to repay at least €1 billion to bondholders this year, and possibly another €1.8 billion, depending on the decision of investors in bonds it has issued that are exchangeable into shares in General Motors.
The Cuban peso (CUP) and the Cuban convertible peso (CUC) are both legal tender on the island, though neither is exchangeable in foreign markets.
Thus, while the supply of these great necessaries is limited to a given quantity, the chief effect of increased production at home is to lower its exchangeable value for the article of which the quantity is fixed.
SIR —The Bologna rules which make university grades, subjects, courses, and degrees comparable and thus exchangeable across the European Union may well usher in the competition that is now so sorely lacking on the sub-continent, as you suggest.
If the share (or index) falls below a predetermined price, even for a minute, then the exchangeable bond gets redeemed not for cash but for the underlying security.
Of about 10m objects created, about 230,000 are bought and sold every month in the in-world currency, Linden dollars, which is exchangeable for hard currency.
