Derivatives, as financial instruments, have gained an increasingly important role to the financial status of big companies around the globe. Their importance can be primarily illustrated by the huge development of the derivatives exchange markets in the most developed countries, with banks usually being at the centre of trading of these powerful financial tools. The very essence of their importance lies to the fact that companies can use them to reduce uncertainty or risk that stems from entrepreneurial activities. Financial managers use derivatives to understand the risks that their firms are exposed to daily and thus are able to pursue higher returns, given the fact that higher returns impose higher risks. The management of high risks enables companies to reduce the danger of financial losses and in the same time achieve higher returns. The extended use of derivatives can also attribute further benefits to the financial position of firms by improving several other corporate actions like cheaper borrowing, tax planning and ensuring safer loan payback. However, derivatives’ trading has been a cause for huge corporate losses for many companies, the financial management of which ignored the high risks involved in the use of those financial instruments. This essay will attempt to examine the ways in which companies can use derivatives to modify their financial position.
A derivative (or derivative security) can be defined as a tradable asset whose intrinsic value depends on or derives from the value of an underlying asset (like shares or bonds), a commodity (like oil or gold) or an abstract measure (like interest rates or indexes). This dependency of the derivatives’ value is the reason why they are also called contingent claims. This last definition of derivatives describes accurately their nature of being an exercisable right or obligation rather than a tradable good. This right or obligation is the exact legal contract that acquires value like a real asset, and therefore can be traded. People have implemented derivatives, as legal contracts, since ancient times, although their systematic use and trading began in the late nineteenth century. However, the past thirty years witnessed a massive growth in the volume of derivatives’ trading. Nowadays, derivative markets account for a significant amount of the world financial exchange system, and their types and use keeps developing and adapting to the different financial needs of the various industries. Common types of derivatives are options, futures, forwards, forward rate agreements and swaps, while other less common types are caps, floors, exotic options, Over-The Counter (OTCs) and exchange-traded derivatives. A brief description of the most common derivatives is given below.
An option is a contractual agreement that the gives the right and not the obligation in one party to buy or sell an underlying commodity or asset at a given price anytime during a pre-specified period of time. At the end of the pre-specified period this right can be exercised or not, according to the option’s holder needs, thus the name of the derivative. If an option gives the buyer the right to purchase an asset (a number of shares for example) at a given price during a time period, this option is called call option. By the end of the period the right expires and after that date the option loses its value. On the contrary, if a similar contract gives the buyer the right to sell an asset (at an agreed price and up to a given date), it is then called put option. Call and Put options enable their holders to make profits, reducing the uncertainty of the future value of the underlying asset because they can be tradable at any time before the expiry date. If the underlying asset is a share index like FTSE 100, S&P 500 etc. then the purchased right is called index option.
Futures are also contractual agreements between two parties to buy or sell an asset at a specific time and a pre-specified price. However, a future represents an obligation, not a right, to proceed in the specific transaction, thus neither of the two parties can back away once the agreement is made (or the future is purchased). Thus a holder of a future buys the obligation of the other party and not the right, as in options. However, futures are tradable derivatives and are exchanged in a regulated market, like options. This characteristic allows their holders to change their position, according to the change of the underlying asset value through time before the date of the contracted transaction. However, they are very standardised and so they might not be very attractive to companies with specific financial needs. A future having as underlying asset the short-term interest rate of a currency deposit in a foreign bank is called interest rate future.
On the other hand, forwards are similar agreements to futures in the sense that they both represent obligation of the contracted parts to proceed to a transaction of an agreed price at a specified date. However, forwards are not standardised contracts that can be traded in exchanges, but are tailored-to-need agreements for the specific clients and are usually available over-the-counter (for instance between a bank and the purchaser). Foreign exchange is the one of the most important underlying assets that forwards are used for, providing special trading markets for currencies. Fluctuating interest rates of different currencies create uncertainty for the future repayment of loans obtained with flexible rates. For this reason, forward rate agreements (FRAs) can be made between banks and companies, which assure that they will receive a premium from the banks if the floating rates associated with the re-payment of their loans exceeds a pre-specified amount. FRAs are also tradable, and usually are contracted for short time periods, varying from 3, 6 or 12 months.
The exact way in which loans are re-paid as related to floating interest rates created the need for swaps. Swaps are private contracts between companies to exchange interest payment obligations to banks. Under a swap arrangement, companies might be able to mutually devise loan repayments that are cheaper for both parts. Swaps, unlike FRAs, are commonly negotiated for longer periods and can be contracted and traded in similar ways to options.
From the above description of the most common derivatives, it is clear that companies have a powerful toolbox of financial instruments that can be implemented to improve their financial position. The most predominant objective of their use is the mitigation of uncertainty, with regards to future values of assets or commodities. This practice is known as hedging of risk. Hedging can be done with options. If for example a pharmaceutical company announces that in 6 months they might have a cure for cancer, the share price will go sky-high, however the financial managers might be concerned of a failure to meet this announcement. They can protect the financial position of the company by buying put options that can be exercised in case the company fails to discover the cure for cancer (and so its share will bottom down).
Such options that are issued by the company itself are called warrants. Hedging with options or warrants can be used against numerous potential declines in the share price or the whole market. Thus hedging helps to protect companies against financial instability.
Options can also be used in incentive payment schemes from companies to employees, who can be offered call options that can be exercised in the future when the corporate share will be higher. This offer provides a motivation to workers to push the share up by improving their working performance. Thus companies achieve with this indirect payment method increased productivity gains.
Another potential beneficial use of options is tax planning. Big multinational corporations can make use the of differences in tax legislation in the different countries they operate, and manage to reduce the whole payable tax or their cost of capital by trading options in different jurisdictions. Tax practitioners can design option trading in such ways that they achieve tax deductions without significant changes in the financial position of the corporation.
Hedging can also take place with futures on underlying commodities. Many major producers are uncertain of the future price of commodities essential to their business and so they use futures to ensure their production costs against price rises. Thus, they are willing to pay a premium that will ensure them against price volatilities. Under the same rationale, large investors that hold big and diversified portfolios, which are sensitive to the overall movements of share indexes, might want to hedge with share index futures. In that way they can reduce their losses if the indexes plunge.
All derivatives that are contingent to interest rate payments can also be used to hedge risks that occur from floating rates. FRAs are specifically useful in this case since they assure their holders against interest rate falls. Slightly alternative interest rate hedging techniques are used in Caps and Floors. These hedging techniques are particularly useful to firms that need to eliminate or reduce their exposure to interest rate short-term fluctuations and thus they are willing to pay a risk premium.
Risks that are associated with exchange rate volatility can also be hedged by using derivatives. Intra country economic transactions are priced according to the relative exchange rates of the currencies involved. For instance, an exported commodity that is priced one British pound in the UK does not have a steady value in Euros throughout time. This means that the same transaction can have different value, according to the level of the currency exchange rate. Multinational corporations and firms that are directly implicated to foreign trade (imports/exports) are exceptionally sensitive to volatile exchange rates and thus they are looking to employ derivatives that can help reduce this uncertainty. Futures can be used to ensure a currency transaction in the future, regardless of the exchange rate in that future time. Or when firms require greater flexibility they can use currency forwards that are not as standardised as futures and can also be individually tailored. Alternatively, firms can use currency options that not only allow them to hedge foreign exchange risk but also to make additional profits if the exchange rate is favourable.
In conclusion, derivative securities have increased the capability of financial managers to improve the financial position of their firms and mitigate uncertainty regarding the future of the business and the financial markets. The importance of derivatives can nowadays be observed by the exploding evolution of derivative exchange markets in developed economies all over the world. Derivatives, that represent a contractual agreement towards either the right or the obligation of the contractors to proceed to a pre-specified transaction in the future, can take different forms and variations, according to the specific needs of the business. However, their most common function is to reduce the risk involved in future economic transactions, so that firms or institutions can be more secured against economic uncertainty that has noticeably has imposed immense costs on entrepreneurial activities in the past. This altering of the risk profile of corporate activity, also known as hedging, can sometimes also contribute to the simultaneous achievement of great profits, allocating even more importance to derivative instruments. Furthermore, derivatives can prove beneficial to companies when used in incentive payment schemes, tax planning or loan repayments. Following the increasing use of derivative instruments the last thirty years, it is certain that their corporate use will be even more augmented through the design and implementation of new types.
References
Arnold, G. (2005), Handbook of corporate finance, Financial Times Prentice Hall
Eales, B., A., (1995), Financial Risk Management, McGraw Hill: Maidenhead
Hull, J., C., (2000), Options futures and other derivatives, (5th edit.), Prentice Hall International
Taylor, F., (2000), Mastering derivatives markets, (2nd edit.), Financial Times Prentice Hall
Winston, D., (1995), Financial Derivatives, Chapman and Hall: London
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