Baby Bond

What Is a Baby Bond?

A baby bond is a fixed income security that is issued in small-dollar denominations, with a par value of under $1,000. The small denominations improve the fascination of baby bonds to average retail investors.

Understanding Baby Bonds

Baby bonds are issued chiefly by municipalities, counties, and states to fund costly infrastructure ventures and capital expenditures. These tax-exempt municipal bonds are generally structured as zero-coupon bonds with a maturity of somewhere in the range of eight and 15 years. The muni bonds are normally rated An or better in the bond market.

Baby bonds are additionally issued by businesses as corporate bonds. Corporate issuers of these debt securities incorporate utility companies, investment banks, telecom companies, and business development companies (BDCs) associated with funding small-and fair sized businesses. The price of the corporate still up in the air by the issuer's financial wellbeing, credit rating, and available market data for the company. A company that can't or doesn't have any desire to issue a large debt offering might issue baby bonds as a method for generating demand and liquidity for the bonds. Another explanation that a company might issue baby bonds is to draw in small or retail investors who might not have the funds to purchase the standard $1,000 par value bond.

Model

For instance, an entity that wanted to borrow money by giving $4 million worth of bonds probably won't gather a lot of interest from institutional investors for such a generally small issue. Furthermore, with a $1,000 par value, the issuer will actually want to sell just 4,000 bond certificates on the markets. Notwithstanding, in the event that the company issues baby bonds rather for a $400 face value, retail investors will actually want to reasonably access these securities, and the company will have the capacity to issue 10,000 bonds in the capital markets.

Extra Considerations

Baby bonds are normally classified as unsecured debt, meaning the issuer or borrower pledges no collateral to guarantee interest payments and principal repayments in the event of default. Thusly, in the event that the issuer defaults on its payment obligations, baby bondholders would get compensated solely after the claims of secured debt holders were met. Nonetheless, keeping the guideline structure of debt instruments, baby bonds are senior to a company's preferred shares and common stock.

One feature of baby bonds is that they are callable. A callable bond is one that can be reclaimed early, or at least, before maturity, by the issuer. At the point when bonds are called, the interest payments additionally stop being paid by the issuer. To remunerate baby bondholders for the risk of calling a bond prior to its maturity date, these bonds have somewhat high coupon rates, going from around 5 percent to 8 percent.

Other Baby Bonds

Baby bonds may likewise allude to a series of small denomination savings bonds with face value going from $75 to $1,000, issued by the U.S. government from 1935 to 1941. These tax-exempt bonds were sold at 75% of face value and had a maturity of 10 years.

In the UK, baby bonds allude to a type of bond sent off in the late 1990s with the objective of empowering savings for children by their parents. Parents needed to make small month to month contributions for no less than 10 years and in return, the child received a guaranteed least amount tax-free after turning 18.

Highlights

• Baby bonds are generally common among municipal issuers, or as government-issued savings bonds.
• A baby bond is one that has a face value of under $1,000.
• These small-denomination bonds are expected to draw in ordinary investors who might not have large amounts to invest in traditional bonds.