Answer:
Financing is a very important part of every business. Firms often need financing to pay for their assets, equipment, and other important items. Financing can be either long-term or short-term. As is obvious, long-term financing is more expensive as compared to short-term financing.
There are different vehicles through which long-term and short-term financing is made available. This chapter deals with the major vehicles of both types of financing.
Explanation:
Long-Term Financing
Long-term financing is usually needed for acquiring new equipment, R&D, cash flow enhancement, and company expansion. Some of the major methods for long-term financing are discussed below.
Equity Financing
Equity financing includes preferred stocks and common stocks. This method is less risky in respect to cash flow commitments. However, equity financing often results in dissolution of share ownership and it also decreases earnings.
The cost associated with equity is generally higher than the cost associated with debt, which is again a deductible expense. Therefore, equity financing can also result in an enhanced hurdle rate that may cancel any reduction in the cash flow risk.
Corporate Bond
A corporate bond is a special kind of bond issued by any corporation to collect money effectively in an aim to expand its business. This tern is usually used for long-term debt instruments that generally have a maturity date after one year after their issue date at the minimum.
Short-Term Financing
Short-term financing with a time duration of up to one year is used to help corporations increase inventory orders, payrolls, and daily supplies. Short-term financing can be done using the following financial instruments −
Commercial Paper
Commercial Paper is an unsecured promissory note with a pre-noted maturity time of 1 to 364 days in the global money market. Originally, it is issued by large corporations to raise money to meet the short-term debt obligations.
It is backed by the bank that issues it or by the corporation that promises to pay the face value on maturity. Firms with excellent credit ratings can sell their commercial papers at a good price.
Asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP) is collateralized by other financial assets. ABCP is a very short-term instrument with 1 and 180 days’ maturity from issuance. ACBCP is typically issued by a bank or other financial institution.
Promissory Note
It is a negotiable instrument where the maker or issuer makes an issue-less promise in writing to pay back a pre-decided sum of money to the payee at a fixed maturity date or on demand of the payee, under specific terms.
