This site is intended to be an information platform on contingent capital ("CoCo") bonds and related issues. Although we like to call them capital insurance bonds as they fulfill more of an insurance function.
Capital insurance bonds are debt instruments with the special feature that they will convert mandatorily in ordinary shares or similar instruments of the relevant issuer, mostly banks, when one or more triggers are met. Such a trigger could be for example reaching a certain threshold in the required capital ratio of the bank. In this aspect capital insurance bonds resemble more catastrophe bonds (more on cat bonds under www.HedgeFund-Lawyer.com) than convertible bonds. However, as an emerging asset class there are still no clear market standards visible.
The main purpose of capital insurance bonds is to increase a bank's capital in times of distress. Until then, or if the trigger is never met, capital insurance bonds are normal debt instruments which can count to a bank's core cpital (provided the relevant regulator approves it). Nevertheless, there may be times when a bank will not be obliged to pay interest and forgoe the relevant interest payment, in particular when not sufficient distributable profits have been earned.
We recommend you start by viewing our resources:
- check out our BookShop for literature on the contingent capital solutions
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