How would you like to get in on the ground of a really attractive financial proposition, one with a near guaranteed return?
All we need is a few million dollars, and a submarine.
One of the things that banks love to do is loan money at high-interest rates. But interest rates are so low right now! How to make money from loans?
Well, it turns out you can get a pretty good return by loaning money to shady oligarchs who are building megayachts. After all, the underlying asset (the yacht) might be destroyed in a storm or sink when it’s drunkenly piloted into a reef during a wild party! The oligarch might default because he flees tax regulators, or suffers a sudden, inexplicable case of polonium poisoning!
The bank that has made a nice little business of financing the yachts of shady billionaires, Credit Suisse, is very happy to take their money. But it is less happy to take on the risk of holding these loans, which might default.
So, according to a recent Financial Times article, the bank securitized the loans.
This is the same thing banks did with loads and loads of dodgy mortgages prior to the Great Recession, you may recall. The yacht loans (along with some loans for private jets, naturally) are being packaged up and sold off to hedge funds, who are apparently happy to take on the added risk of being in the billionaire-boat-loan business if they can make fat profits.
Everyone is happy!
What no one seems to have realized is that this has opened up a new potential financial venture: billionaire yacht loan shorting/piracy.
This is a two-pronged venture, and I’m happy to let you get in on the ground floor.
Here’s what we’re going to need:
First, a submarine. Doesn’t have to be terribly new or efficient, a mid-Cold War diesel workhorse will do just fine. None of those fancy Trident-nuclear-missiles needed, just good, old-fashioned anti-ship torpedoes.
A brace of six or eight should do.
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Then we need enough cash to short the securitized yacht loans. We’re going to bet against them, and we’re going to bet big.
Finally, we’re going to need letters of marque from various heads of state. Where there’s oligarchs, there’s someone who would like to see them go down in flames. We can outfit our submarine as a privateer, not a mere pirate! We’ll have the blessing of a government when we blast them out of the water!
When a sufficient number of yachts have been sunk (oligarch aboard or not) the value of the loans will plummet, and we’ll be in the money.
Insane, you say? Immoral, illegal, wildly unethical? Well, yes, but that’s modern finance for you. If you’re running a hedge fund and you aren’t backing a startup yacht-blasting privateer submarine venture, you’re just leaving money on the table – really.
Of course, I’m not going to actually do this. I’m going into an entirely different business – anti-submarine megayacht insurance policies. Seems likely to be profitable.
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