Astrea IV 4.35% bonds are unusual retail bonds as they are backed by Private Equity (PE). There are 5 safeguards put in place by the issuer to ensure that cashflows from PE investments are adequate to meet the obligations of the bond. These are:

To understand why these safeguards are important and necessary, let us consider a hypothetical scenario in which I wish to issue Boring Investor bonds to retail investors to raise capital to invest in public equities listed on the SGX. Cashflows for the bonds would come from sale of equity investments and dividends from investee companies. 

Generally, the Straits Times Index (STI) generates annualised returns of 7% in capital appreciation and 3% in dividends on average. To entice investors to my Boring Investor bonds, I would probably have to pay interest rate of 5% on the bonds. The first question that comes to mind is how do I ensure that I could meet the 5% interest obligations on the Boring Investor bonds on a sustainable basis when I could only receive 3% dividends from the equity investments? There are several things I can do, as described below. 

Supposed I intend to invest $1M in the SGX equities. At a dividend rate of 3%, the maximum dividends I could get from the equities annually is only $30K. Based on the bond interest rate of 5%, the maximum amount of Boring Investor bonds I could issue is $30K / 5%, or $600K. The maximum Loan-to-Value (LTV) ratio that can be supported by dividends on a sustainable basis is only 60%. Thus, by setting a maximum cap on the LTV ratio, I can better ensure that bond holders are paid on time.

There will be times when the economy is not doing well and the investee companies have to cut dividends. When this happens, I might not get sufficient dividends from the equity investments to pay interest to bond holders. I will need to borrow money temporarily from the banks to pay the bond interest.

There will also be times when some companies need to issue rights issues to raise money. Given that most the funds raised from the Boring Investor bonds have been invested in the SGX equities, I might not have sufficient funds to subscribe to the rights issues and buy additional shares in the companies at a bargain. To guard against this, I can set up a credit line with the banks to temporarily borrow money to subscribe to the rights issues.

Given the unpredictable nature of the cashflows from dividends and sale of equity investments, it is prudent to set up a sinking fund to save some excess cashflows after paying the bond interest and other necessary expenses. The amount to be set aside for the sinking fund each year is a pre-determined amount, but it is only set aside if excess cashflows are available. The sinking fund will be topped up until there are sufficient funds to redeem the Boring Investor bonds in full. This would increase the likelihood that the bonds could be redeemed in full when they mature.

Generally, after meeting all the obligations mentioned above, any remaining cashflows would belong to the sponsor shareholder. However, as an additional gesture of goodwill, I can share the remaining cashflows 50:50 with bond holders if certain performance threshold is met by a certain date. The cashflows shared with bond holders would be used to top up the sinking fund mentioned above, if it is not full yet. 

As you can see above, cashflows from equity investments (more so for PE investments and PE funds) are unpredictable, irregular and discretionary whereas interest and principal repayment obligations of bonds are fixed and mandatory. There is a need for some of the above-mentioned safeguards (known as credit enhancements) to ensure that bond obligations can be met when they fall due. If there were no credit enhancements, and the fixed and mandatory bond obligations were solely funded by the irregular and discretionary cashflows from equity investments, defaults on the bonds would likely happen at some point in time. 

Thus, the Astrea IV 4.35% bonds are safe mainly because of the safeguards put in place. It is not a bond, but a structured bond. The credit ratings for Astrea IV 4.35% bonds are expected to be "A(sf)", with "sf" denoting structured finance. To avoid confusion with traditional bonds, it is best to refer to the Astrea IV 4.35% bonds as structured bonds, just like we differentiate structured deposits from fixed deposits. 

Did I invest in Astrea IV 4.35% bonds? No, I did not. I prefer to invest in traditional bonds in which the underlying cashflows are sufficient to meet the bond obligations without any credit enhancements. 

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