Student Education Loan Fund, Inc (Abridge) Introduction Background of case Study Rick Melnick is an Associate Director of Financial Management at Harvard Business School. He had a decision to make regarding the new funding policy under the management of Student Educational Loan Fund. SELF was established in 1961 to fund loans to HBS. Traditionally, HBS student loans required the borrower to pay semi-annually with a variable interest rate policy. Under the new plan, the students would receive monthly pay plus fixed-rate interest.
With this new plan the management believed that it will reduce the rate of delinquency among the students. Basically, in 1996, the tuition fee for the two-year MBA program at HBS was $42,000. The cost is estimated to achieve up to $45,372 when it complies with health insurance and living exp
...enses. This high expense forces most of the students to obtain some form of student loan. There are many types of loan that students can choose from. Some of the loans is offered by U. S Federal Government under Stafford and Perkins loans. Students also have a choice to borrow from the bank.
But because of these loans are only eligible for U. S residence, many foreign students at HBS School obtained loan under the school itself. (See table 1 for alternative student loans) Funding SELF When SELF was established in 1961 it was actually set up to accommodate the rapid expansion of the loan by students. To operate, SELF bought the loans outstanding under the HBS loan program and received the right of future cash flow from the student’s prepayment. The prepayments are then used by SELF to purchase the HBS loan. To fund
the loan’s purchasing, SELF borrowed from its two banks identically, 7. million each. Interest on the loans was charged at the prime rate and paid monthly. The credit lines have a term of 1 year and thus had to be renewed annually. Shows the structure of payment to the bank and received prepayment from the students. SELF-payment structure If the management wants to implement the new fixed-rate, mortgage style, the above structure will be changing. When the asset received by SELF will be in the fixed-rate with monthly payment, but still SELF had to paid the bank in a prime-rate monthly basis.
This will create problems as the new policy will not match the existing prime-rate funding. To solve the problem, Melnick had entered into derivatives market to do the Interest rate Swap. What is the problem faced by Rick Melnick? SELF is a School Student Education Loan Fund that separately incorporated but related unit of Harvard Business School (HBS). It is a non-profit organization because all the money they get from bank is used to purchase loan from HBS.
They do swap to be protected from making losses from the unmatched event because students pay them at fixed rate and their loan is floating rate. This unmatched situation may cause problems because SELF have obligation to the bank to maintain certain amount in their balance sheet in order to continuously received loans from the bank. SELF's main objectives are to accommodate HBS students in terms of fund loans and at the same time to finance the purchase of student loans each year since the annual aggregate value of HBS loans made had grown rapidly and the
student body had become increasingly diverse.
Meanwhile, Melnick had to find a solution by finding new interest rate derivatives product in order to address the unmatched between SELF’s new loans and its funding. The problems may occur if the floating interest rate rise and SELF fixed-rate income may not being able to compensate the liability. Furthermore, it is never easy to find the correct pattern of student’s prepayment and make it hard to predict the SELF cash inflow
Question 3 How can you characterize the loans SELF makes in terms of riskless bonds and options? Remember that a call option gives the holder a right to buy assets & a put option gives the holder the right to sell an asset. Riskless bonds = Future return is known with certainty Options = Future return is unknown with certainty until exercised At the receiving money from the students at fixed payment semi-annually seem like the return received from treasury bonds and at the funding of the SELF loan is seem similar with an option whereby option allow the holder to exercise the right when the holder wants.
Especially in the lower interest rate environment which makes the students can obtain the external source of loan (cheaper rate) than pay the SELF loan at a high rate of fixed rate. So the students considered have an option to make a repayment. What so you think affects the value of this option? It depends on the interest rate, if the interest rate is low then it will encourage the students to make repayment because they can obtain lower rate from external loan to pay all the SELF loan and vice versa
Under what circumstances might a student choose an old-style SELF loan?
They expect to earn more income in particular years. A new Mortgage –style monthly SELF loan? Students expect the interest rate will be lower in the future. Question 4 What should Melnick recommend to SELF board? , Why? Based on the overall evaluation in Q1 to Q3, Melnick can recommend to the SELF board to implement the new mortgage loan with a fixed rate for receiving and funding by SELF. By having fixed-rate loans, SELF can project/forecast the future cash flows and monitor it liquidity level.
Moreover, this new mortgage loan style with fixed-rate can resulted a better prepayment from students especially in a lower interest rate environment and secure the max interest rate which the student need to pay in a high-interest rate environment. Furthermore, with IRS SELF would be able to secure it potential losses arising from the fluctuation of interest rate and maintaining SELF as a nonprofit organization. Conclusion
The case study, it shows that the availability of derivatives products i. e IRS would enable SELF to repackage it position in the Balance Sheet i. e. loans/borrowing in the liabilities side and lending/repayment in the assets side. SELF would be able to match the borrowing and repayment of a loan with one fixed rate = 8. 78%. The market risk faced by SELF through interest rate fluctuation in the market can be secured at 8. 78% and SELF liquidity would be better in the future.
- Commercial Bank essays
- Debit Card essays
- Deposit Account essays
- Subprime Lending essays
- Bank essays
- Banking essays
- Corporate Finance essays
- Credit Card essays
- Currency essays
- Debt essays
- Donation essays
- Enron Scandal essays
- Equity essays
- Financial Accounting essays
- Financial Crisis essays
- Financial News essays
- Financial Ratios essays
- Financial Services essays
- Forecasting essays
- Foreign Exchange Market essays
- Free Market essays
- Gold essays
- Investment essays
- Legacy essays
- Loan essays
- Market Segmentation essays
- Money essays
- Personal finance essays
- Purchasing essays
- Retirement essays
- Shareholder essays
- Stock Market essays
- Supply And Demand essays
- Venture Capital essays
- Futures Contract essays
- Mortgage Loan essays
- Renting essays
- Transaction Cost essays
- Classroom essays
- College essays
- E-Learning essays
- Elementary School essays
- Examination essays
- Graduate School essays
- High School essays
- History Of Education essays
- Homeschooling essays
- Kindergarten essays
- Middle School essays
- Public School essays