A colleague in your firm’s underwriting group informed you that SDI, with its BB rating,
could probably issue 15-year convertible bonds with a 7 percent annual coupon at par, $1,000.
Straight BB-rated debt would require a considerably higher coupon. With convertibles, each $1,000
bond could be exchanged, at the option of the bondholder, into 40 shares of SDI stock. The convertible
issue would have 10 years of call protection, after which it could be called for $1,050.
Companies frequently call to force conversion if the conversion value is 30 percent above the bond’s
par value, provided the bond has become callable, and SDI would probably follow this policy. The
call could only be made on an interest payment date, which in the case of annual coupon bonds
such as SDI would issue would be once a year.