Credit Enhancement Through Financial Engineering: Freeport-Mcmoran's Gold-Denominated Depositary Shares

Abstract

In 1993 and 1994, Freeport McMoRan Copper and Gold issued two series of gold-denominated depositary shares to finance the expansion of its mining capacity in Indonesia. The pricing of these securities reflected their enhanced credit quality, which arose from the positive correlation between the value of the firm and the value of the securities. This feature of the securities effectively bundles a gold hedge with financing. A bundled hedge avoids wealth transfers to senior bondholders, since junior bondholders can effectively net their bond-related claims on the firm against their hedge-related liability to the firm. Such securities cannot be replicated by conventional hedging strategies, and they also mitigate the asset substitution problem.

Keywords: Risk management, Credit Enhancement, Gold-Linked, Hybrid Securities

JEL Classification: G32, G13