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Meaning / Definition of

Tracking Stock

Categories: Investing and Trading, Stocks,

Best defined with an example. Suppose Company A purchases a business from Company B and pays B with 1 million shares of A's stock. The agreement provides that B cannot sell the 1 million shares for 60 days, and also prohibits B from hedging by purchasing put options on A's shares or short-selling A's shares. B is worried that the market may fall in the next 60 days. B could hedge by purchasing put options or selling the futures on the s&p 500. However, it is possible that A's business is much more cyclical than the s&p 500. One solution to this problem is to find a tracking stock. This is a stock that has high correlation with A. Let us call it Company C. The solution is to sell short or buy protective put options on this tracking stock C. This protects B from fluctuations in the price of A's stock over the next 60 days. Because the degree of the protection is related to the correlation of A and C's stock, it is extremely unlikely that the protection is perfect. Multidivisional firms have used a form of restructuring called tracking stock since 1984 to segment the performance of a particular division -- similar to a spin-off or carve-out, except that the parent firm does not relinquish control of the tracked division. Previously, this was known as alphabet stock, but the technically correct name is tracking stock (e.g., EDS traded for years as a tracking stock of GM). This is a way to reward managers for good divisional performance with an equity that is tied to their division-rather than potentially penalizing them compensation for bad performance in a division they have no control over.

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Definition / Meaning of

Franchised Monopoly

Categories: Business and Management,

A government-granted monopoly. The most important reason for the government granting a monopoly is in the case of the product or service being a natural monopoly, i.e. unable to sustain more than one producer. This is usually the case when very large economy of scale is needed to make production efficient (so the marginal cost of producing each additional unit is very low). Thus, given the huge scale of production needed for efficiency, it could be that the entire market demand would be fulfilled by a single efficient producer, making it unfeasible to have a second producer in the market. Thus, the government may decide to simply give a producer a monopoly, so that the producer is convinced of the fact that there is adequate market to achieve efficient scale. A government may also choose to grant monopolies in special conditions such as when they want to encourage a specific kinds of innovation (patents are effectively a government-granted monopoly), give preference to a producer who might also be involved in community development activities etc.

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