How to regulate banks? | 18 comments (18 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: Your theory is fine (none / 1)

To the extent that people who build infrastructure are not willing (or able) to accept "Equity" (ie proportional shares) in the outcome, then investors of risk capital are necessary, of course.

I've been involved in a couple of those, particularly a film, where we needed "Capital Partner" punters to pay for lights, cameras and pizza. Which they did, for a 20% "Equity Share" in the revenues (if there are any).

Once a project is complete, then these risk-friendly investors may exit by selling to risk averse investors. Just like PFI. But a non-toxic version.

The other mechanism available to raise some or all of the necessary investment is to raise finance by selling production forward to investors - possibly stakeholders interested in hedging purchases - in "Pool" funds structured as LLC's or LLP's.

These are essentially "exchange traded commodity" funds, with the difference that the return of investment will be denominated in (say) energy units or land rental units (themselves exchangeable for other value).

I believe that it is possible for (say) Qatar to refinance existing LNG debt by selling part of their production forward to stakeholder investors (eg the Japanese or Chinese), and for this (interest-free) finance then to be used for further LNG infrastructure etc.

The result would be what is essentially an energy pool ( a tradable liquidity pool, moreover, without the fragmentation of monthly futures prompt dates) of fungible energy-based "value units" - ie "carbon dollars" based on energy content of carbon, not some nonsensical price based upon the entirely unrealistic trading in carbon emissions.

These value units are essentially undated and ungeared futures contracts. A bit like Redeemable Preference shares in the LLP but without an income, and with a return of capital in kind instead. ie market participants who have bought such units as a "hedge" could present them, instead of conventional $ to a seller in settlement for physical energy bought through the Pool.

The market price of LNG is the price at which LNG is sold into and out of the pool, and investors - by definition - would not participate in that market auction price.

Anyway, I'm hoping that The Gulf Research Center (www.grc.ae ) will be publishing a fairly long article on the subject shortly in their journal (they said they would).

"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed" William Gibson

by ChrisCook (cojockathotmaildotcom) on Wed Nov 28th, 2007 at 11:40:43 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Your theory is fine (4.00 / 2)

I also think one has to distinguish between linear (basically industrial) processes and non-linear processes such as you find in the so-called knowledge economy.
I am not saying that the asset-based LLP model cannot be applied to construction, manufacturing, transport, energy plant etc (You have examples of these, Chris - or at least proposals). But I think the LLP is especially suited to connecting people and groups and companies in endeavours involving knowhow and knowledge as the assets - in non-linear enterprises.

The partnership, the cooperative, the trust, are common enough business models in consultancy, accounting, law, advertising, marketing and especially in the entertainment industry. It is hard indeed to find a modern law firm in the UK that is NOT an LLP now. Hollywood has long used some of the collaborative, risk taking, lien and forward purchase elements of LLPs to put together movies.

In the creative and content industries, the LLP is perfect. There is no real capital investment involved. What do you need? An office, some mobiles, some work stations - everything can be leased. What you need is people/minds working together - and preferably not employees. These kind of loose groupings have been around for a long time in these industries. But they require a stack of bilateral contracts that are only brought out when there is a dispute - otherwise people work on trust, as long as there is transparency.

The LLP provides a much simpler way of assembling these groupings, with a much smaller overhead because the overhead is distributed away from what is essentially not a company but a networked agreement that can join together many disparate 'assets'.

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Wed Nov 28th, 2007 at 12:25:37 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Your theory is fine (none / 1)

Quite right.

The LLP (and LLC) enables an enabling "framework" for self organisation - rather than a self serving "organisation" - which is easier to apply to people aka "Human" Capital and to intangible "Intellectual" Capital than to tangible assets - particularly land where "ownership" and "use" are pretty complex subjects.

It's no coincidence that the "peer to peer" disintermediation phenomenon began with intangible "Intellectual Property" ie Napster.

But the process of "Napsterisation" has only just got started and credit intermediaries are - now that banking is almost entirely electronic - just as redundant as the Titans of music who are now looking back and commenting on their own demise...

"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed" William Gibson

by ChrisCook (cojockathotmaildotcom) on Wed Nov 28th, 2007 at 12:54:56 PM EST
[ Parent ]

That is a good point (none / 0)

The gas industry is probably the least relevant for Chris's theories. But what you say about knowledge industries make a lot of sense.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Wed Nov 28th, 2007 at 03:11:22 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: That is a good point (none / 0)

The gas - particularly LNG - industry is most in need of a coherent global market structure and best placed for its introduction, because it's relatively undeveloped in structure, and three or four countries have the market sewn up, who are already talking to each other.

It wouldn't be as difficult as you think to introduce a different financial structure to the one you are used to.

Particularly when the outcomes of the model I advocate are so compelling for end users, who are currently being fucked thrice over:

directly by oil market intermediaries in respect of their oil;
indirectly for gas priced against oil;
by financial intermediaries and the whole consultancy/ legal/ accountancy circus that feeds off them in respect of complex and costly structured gas market financial infrastructure.

"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed" William Gibson

by ChrisCook (cojockathotmaildotcom) on Wed Nov 28th, 2007 at 05:45:40 PM EST
[ Parent ]

With due respect (none / 0)

oil and gas are pretty different industries;
there's a good reason gas is priced against oil: it's a direct substitute for many uses ( a BTU is a BTU);
the oil & gas industry is so powerful that most companies are better rated than banks and can borrow cheaper than banks do. If they use the financial structures we propose, there must be a reason.

I'll be able to post soon that paper I wrote explaining how gas infrastructure is financed, and why it's a lot more complex than most pundits and observers seem to realise. I hope you will read it.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Thu Nov 29th, 2007 at 01:17:58 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: That was then: this is now (none / 0)

I am well aware how complex gas financing currently is, and it goes without saying that I look forward to reading your paper to acquaint myself with the "State of the Art".

However, the world is changing, and on the one hand the balance of market power has irreversibly swung back to state owned oil and gas companies, and on the other I think we are seeing a new militancy generally on the part of energy consumers (in the US, a renewed government effort by Democrats eg Levin on their behalf) and in particular an antipathy to perceived "gouging" by intermediaries.

The oil trading middlemen are, as you imply, symbiotic with banks - eg BP and Goldman Sachs have IMHO been in unholy alliance for at least the last ten years - and like banks will have to come up with a new and disintermediated "service provider" model.

Simple solutions, like the partnership-based mechanisms I observe emerging, are not in the interests of either intermediaries - who thrive on complexity and opacity - or professionals, paid by the hour, rather than the outcome, who support them.

It's interesting that you should point out that a BTU is a BTU, because that is exactly why I have suggested that an energy based "Carbon Dollar" (ie a "dollar's worth" of BTU's at launch date) - backed by a pool of production - makes sense as a quasi "Bancor" Energy Value Unit on an International Energy Clearing Union platform.

So maybe rather than gas being priced off oil, who knows, in due course oil - in all its multiplicity of qualities - may be priced by reference to gas. Plus electricity has a fairly straightforward relationship with gas in many markets.

It is the homogeneity of gas, and the fact that very few sovereign suppliers who control the market that attracts me. I really do not think that they would find it too difficult to accept the logic of the case for a neutral partnership-based market platform.

Let's face it, Brent has long passed it's "sell-by" date as an oil benchmark, and it continues in use purely for lack of a credible alternative.

Moreover, because Norway, Russia, Qatar etc are not in hock to the financial system (rather the reverse) - and because Russia still has a nuclear deterrent -there would not be a great deal the US/Big Money could do about it.

"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed" William Gibson

by ChrisCook (cojockathotmaildotcom) on Thu Nov 29th, 2007 at 08:25:43 PM EST
[ Parent ]

How to regulate banks? | 18 comments (18 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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