PPP Trade

SBLC Trade & Project Finance:

> Trade Receiving Bank: UOB: Kay Hian Pte Limited

> Client Asset Requirement: 200M SBLC euro [cash backed]

> Offer until placed: 4 X LTV paid to client after 20 Banking Days

> Assignment: Instrument is assigned direct to Bank for One Year and One Month, returned to Sender 15 days prior to Expiry date with no lien and no encumbrance.

> Disbursements of Capital and Fees: Licensed Fiduciary [Hong Kong] HKMA regulated.

> All Clients must declare Project Summaries

Procedures:

1. KYC/AML Documents

2. Video Conference for Principals

3. Contract signed

4. SWIFTS: MT799 and MT760 SBLC

5. Disbursements

6. Project Audit Report/Review

This is a one off current bullet based on client sending us 200m SBLC.

Its not available all year. Only until its placed

Our Trade Principal issues debt finance agreements to finance projects. The bottom line is our credit lines exist in UOB: Kay Hian Pte Limited [Singapore] (https://www.utrade.com.sg/home/index.jsp)

Standard 200m cash backed SBLC from any of your esteemed clients triggers this credit line and we provide automated trade finance.

Our Banker is the Head of Capital Markets. 

The Finance returns is standard LTV per month to client for 10 months in a year.

Our trade group is MAS/HKMA approved and can place larger trades with the appropriate project summaries, once clients succeed with the simple test trial tranche 200m SBLC.

Once they succeed in the test tranche, we can provide them with higher volume trades. 

In a managed buy/sell trading program, the spread between the buying and selling of bank debentures creates profits by buying low and selling high to a predetermined exit buyer. Because traders cannot use their own money to operate a program, they look for financially qualified investors to provide collateral support for the initial purchase of a new issue asset.

In trading, as we are discussing it here, a trader has locked in the first issuance of some instrument – such as a standby letter of credit, a bank guarantee or a medium term note – while, at the same time, the next, or secondary buyer has been lined up and ready to take the asset at a higher price. However, the trader cannot execute the start trade without having shown new money, such as a line of credit; there is nothing to buy or sell. That is where the investor comes in.

Typically, a credit line makes the trades work, and in order to get the credit line, the trader must show that an investor is proffering his cash or instrument assets to be monetized. In many cases, the investor becomes a joint venture partner in the process of this monetization. The investor money is never really touched – it simply acts as supporting collateral for the trade credit line. As the credit line is generally non-repayable, non-recourse or non-depletion, this means little to no risk to the investor of losing his money. This limits the risk of the underlying collateral being tapped in the event of a default. For additional safety, the bank blocks cash funds in an administrative hold, which prevents credit line depletion during the trade contract, or utilizes an acceptable instrument as the support. In the case of a bank instrument, the trader can rightfully use the instrument to support the credit line.

Because the trader already has the ‘exit’ buyer – the second buyer taking the asset at the predetermined higher price – the profit spread has also been predetermined.

When profits are generated, they are generally split so that the investor shares in the bounty, sometimes up to the full amount of the trade credit line, resulting in an 80 to 100 percent profit to the investor, sometimes more. Each program has different types of profit sharing with the trader, which are negotiated when the program is established with the client.

For illustration purposes, a new issue bank debenture may be purchased at about 40 percent of the face value. So, a €500m face value instrument may cost the trader €200m to buy. The trader uses the trade credit line to make that new issue purchase. Then an exit buyer who was pre-established at the beginning of the program may purchase it at 70 percent (or €350m). The difference is the profit made in the trade, of €150m. That is then used to pay profit to the investor (a shared percentage of the total profit), as well as the trader. When bank debentures trade multiple times during a month, this profit adds up handsomely. This is why an investor can see a profit on his money ranging from 80 to 100 percent of the amount of the trade credit line, and sometimes more (depending on the program).

The challenge for many investors is understanding the minimal risk for loss of principal, particularly if the money owned by the investor stays in his own bank account or is used to issue a cash-backed standby letter of credit. Small cap programs typically require movement of funds to a trader account in order to obtain the trade credit line. Few small cap programs, although there are some, can take under €100m and some offer an insurance policy against loss of principal. Several that we have seen do not offer this. One that we know of, does.

Having understood the principles behind a managed buy/sell, the next question most potential investors ask is, ‘what are the steps needed to engage with such a program?’.

Most investors need a minimum of $100m or €100m – either in cash in a commercial corporate bank account or the face value of a bankable instrument. That number is a little bit deceiving, because you have to factor in the trade credit line being anywhere from 70 to 80 percent of the value of the account. That 70 to 80 percent net must equal at least $100m. So, the real need is for the investor to have about $150m, to account for the deduction with the loan-to-value factored in.

A financially qualified investor, in order to avoid potential solicitation rules, is the one who moves first to establish the relationship. This is done with the submission of a Know Your Customer (KYC) and proof of funds set of documents which indicate the investor’s desire and capacity to enter a program. While the preparation of these documents takes just a little time to complete, it fulfills the solicitation rules allowing the trading organisation to open the conversation and subsequently prepare the trade contract shortly after receipt by the appropriate authorized intake person.

In general, it takes a couple of weeks to arrange the trade commitments and the banks, along with approval from the authorities governing these programs, at which time the trading may proceed at the next opportunity to start.

With the noise of internet brokers misinforming people about these programs, building trust must first be mutual between parties. Without trust, there can be no transaction. Trust is the first thing any investor needs to feel is in place before too much discussion of a program is presented.

The fact is that managed buy/sell programs using bank debentures do exist, however actual providers are few and far between. The supply of these programs is small, and demand far exceeds it. Getting in the way of being connected to something real are usually the internet brokers, who smell money but do not have the relationships or knowledge of how these work, so, the likelihood of success is almost nil. When you have a trusted party to work with, with authentic relationships and compatibility, it is possible to be included in a program. For most investors, this is the mechanism used to fund projects without debt or repayment.

The PPP market is changing and no longer limited to governments and MTNs, and industrial companies and banks can issue their own debt instruments. Debt notes such as Medium Terms Notes (MTN), Bank Guarantees (BG), and Stand-By Letters of Credit (SBLC) are issued at discounted prices by major world banks in the amount of $-billions every day.

These private placements can be structured to meet the specific requirements of investors in terms of maturity and coupon. They can be targeted to retail as well as institutional investors, bear fixed or foreign exchange/interest rate-linked coupon, and can include caps, calls, and other features as required by investors.  

A constant theme running through the global non-bank finance market as it has evolved since the 2008 crash, has been private placement and buy/sell programs. Sadly, the whole sector has become tainted as unscrupulous individuals, with no real knowledge of how it operates, have persuaded the unaware to part with significant sums of money on the expectation that they were going to reap outstanding returns. So prevalent did these scams become that the FBI and other agencies actually put out warnings that these programs are, in themselves, a scam. Blame the internet, it’s the cause of much grief in the market generally! It’s probably true to say that less than 1% of what’s on offer on the internet is real. But, nevertheless it is a genuine, private ‘Tier-1’ market place where financial instruments of many types (mostly MTN’s) are transacted by independent traders and trading groups, operating across the world’s to top tier banks.

Clients considering entering this market to make the right decisions look to us for guidance, to find explanations on some of the obscure or unclear aspects of its secure investment opportunities.

​All trading programs in the Private Placement arena involve trade with discounted debt notes in some fashion. Further, in order to bypass the legal restrictions, this trading can only be done on a private level. This is the main difference between PPP trading and ‘conventional’ trading, which is highly regulated. This is a Private Placement level business transaction that is free from the usual restrictions present in the securities market. It is based on trusted, long established private relationships and protocols. Conventional trading activity is performed under the ‘open market’ (also known as the ‘spot market’) where discounted instruments are bought and sold with auction-type bids. To participate in such trading, the trader must be in full control of the funds, otherwise he has no means of buying the instruments before reselling them. 

However, in addition to the widely recognized open market there is a closed, private market comprising a restricted number of ‘master commitment holders’. These are trusts, foundations and other entities with huge amounts of money that enter contractual agreements with banks to buy a limited number of fresh-cut instruments at a specific price during an allotted period of time. Their job is to resell these instruments, so they contract sub-commitment holders, who in turn contract exit-buyers. This form of pre-planned and contracted buy/sell is known as arbitrage, and can ONLY take place in a private market (the PPP market) with pre-defined prices. Consequently, the traders never need to be in control of the client’s funds. However, no program can start unless there is a sufficient quantity of money backing each transaction. It is at this point that, the client, is needed because the involved banks and commitment holders are not allowed to trade with their own money unless they have reserved enough funds, comprising money that belongs to clients, which is never at risk.

The ‘host’ trading bank is then able to loan money to the trader against your deposit. Typically, this money is loaned at a ratio of 10:1, but during certain conditions it can be as high as 20:1. In other words, if the trader can ‘reserve’ $100 million of client funds, then the bank can loan $1 Billion against it, with which the trader can trade. In all actuality, the bank is giving the trader a line of credit based on how much client funds he controls, since the banks can’t loan leverage money without collateral. Because bankers and financial experts are well aware of the ‘normal’ open market and of so -called ‘MTN programs’, but are closed out of this private market, they find it hard to believe that it exists. Bankers in top-tier, global banks (where this trading takes place) are ignorant that this trading exists within their own institutions because it happens at a level far removed from their own mainstream banking operations.

Private Placement trading safety is based on the fact that the transactions are performed as arbitrage. This means that the instruments will be bought and resold immediately with pre-defined prices. A number of buyers and sellers are contracted, including exit-buyers comprising mostly of large financial institutions, insurance companies, or extremely wealthy individuals. The arbitrage contracts, provision of leverage funds from the banks and all settlements follow long established and rapid processes. The issued instruments are never sold directly to the exit-buyer, but to a chain of market participants. The involved banks are not allowed to directly participate in these transactions, but are still profiting from them indirectly by loaning money with interest to the trader as a line of credit. This is their leverage. Furthermore, the banks profit from the commissions involved in each transaction. The client’s principal does not have to be used for the transactions, as it is only reserved as a compensating balance (‘mirrored’) against the credit line provided by the bank to the trader.