External Debt

External debt, in its most general sense, denotes a payment obligation in which the debtor (entity that obtained resources) and the creditor (entity that supplied the resources) are separate and in essence distinct [Page 651]units. The offshoot of this perspective is that creating or terminating the debt generates a corresponding change in aggregate wealth or resources on the part of both units involved in the transaction.

The entities involved can be corporations, individuals, or countries. For corporations, the debt would then be referred to as corporate debt. Debts always entail a liability that has to be eventually paid back on agreed terms. In the case of relatively small businesses, debt is usually in the form of loans or lines of credit obtained from banks.

Corporate Debt

With respect to relatively large corporations, a major portion of debt takes the form of financial instruments, usually bonds of one form or another. Bonds are borrowing arrangements whereby an issuer or borrower sells an IOU to an investor or lender. By this arrangement, the issuer is obligated to make stated payments to the bondholder on specific dates. A coupon bond obligates its issuer to make fixed nominal payments called coupon payments over the life of the bond. In addition, the issuer pays the lender the bond's face value at the time of expiration (maturity date). The coupon rate then is the coupon payment expressed as a percent of the bond's par value. The terms of the issue, including the coupon rate, par value, the maturity date, and any other legal rights and responsibilities of the issuer and the holder are spelled out in a contract, called an indenture. Sometimes coupon payments are set to zero so that the buyer pays a price below the par value to get a return equal to the price difference when principal is repaid at maturity in the amount of the bond's face value.

Usually firms issue four types of corporate debt, namely debentures, notes, mortgage bonds, and asset-backed bonds. Notes in this context are generally bond issues whereby all obligations are due less than 10 years from the date of issue. A more common maturity for corporate bonds is 20 to 30 years.

Debentures, like notes, are not secured by any specific pledge of property. They do, however, have claim to the issuer's property and earnings because they share the claim of general creditors on all assets owned by the issuer but not specifically pledged to secured debt elsewhere. They also have a claim on pledged assets whenever such assets exceed what is needed to satisfy secured lenders.

Secured debt is that whereby particular assets are pledged as collateral so that investors in bonds have direct claim to the assets given bankruptcy. This type of debt is also referred to as asset-backed bonds. Mortgage bonds are an example of asset-backed bonds secured by real property. The process of raising capital through debt financing is analogous to the initial public offering (IPO) for stocks.

Country Debt

When the entities involved include countries, external debt is defined as the outstanding amount of actual, current, and noncontingent payments of principal and interest by the debtor country that are owed to nonresidents by the residents of the borrower country. The liability has to exist and be outstanding. It is important to establish whether the creditor actually owns a claim on the debtor. The debt liabilities in this case are created through provision of economic value, i.e., financial and nonfinancial assets including goods, services, or transfers by one institutional entity, the creditor to another unit, the debtor, usually under some contractual arrangement. Liabilities can also accrue in this type of borrowing, from legal action such as when taxes, penalties, or judicial awards are imposed by force of law. Liabilities from external debt at the country level also include arrears of principal and interest charges.

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