Permanent excise taxes inculcated the English to the practice of taxing all citizens; soon this matured into the conviction that all should contribute towards the support of the government. The poor ought to pay taxes to the best of their ability as part of their duty to society. John Locke, the political theorist intimately connected with the Glorious Revolution, whose writings served as the basis for the Declaration of Independence, strongly supported this idea. ‘Governments cannot be supported without great charge and it is fi t everyone who enjoys his share of protection should pay out of his estate his proportion for the maintenance of it’. Th e contract between government and its citizens, he believed, included an obligation on the part of each constituent for the maintenance of the state. Th is in turn meant that governments could ‘not [to] raise taxes on the property of the people without the consent of the people’. A century later Adam Smith would echo this sentiment; his first ‘maxim of taxation’ declared, ‘Th e subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities’

With the passage of the national banking legislation, the Republicans completed process of building a new infrastructure that would allow them to fi nance the war. Although their measures did not dismantle fi scal federalism,  they did push the limits of antebellum fi nance in new directions. As the war continued, they would have to learn how to meld the past with the future in order to carry the nation through this crisis. Th e policies they enacted did not represent a new, innovative, or uniquely Republican way of looking at the economy. Instead, at each turn, they had turned to precedents. In the process, they altered the course for the public economy and fi nancial structure of the government.

The national bank system had significant flaws that hurt rural economies during the late nineteenth century; however, the urgency of the country at the start of the war ‘made such banking legislation fi nancially desirable and politically feasible’. Th e ‘exhausted condition of the Treasury’ that began before the war, and continued through 1863, compelled reluctant lawmakers to adopt a new system of national banking. Chase expressed his earnest desire for a  ‘circulation of notes bearing a common impression and authenticated by a common authority’, in both his 1861 and 1862 Annual Reports to Congress. He wanted a system of national banks established that would facilitate the distribution of this common money. He did not wish to create a new model of banks; nor did he wish to resurrect the Bank of the United States. Instead he based his vision of the national banks on the New York Free Banking law; ultimately this antebellum measure would become the basis for the national banking system. The difference would come from consistency and oversight; whereas the individual states had a spurious system of regulation, the National Bank system would have national government oversight. Bonds of the national government, not state bonds or speculative railroad bonds, would provide the basis for the reserves for these banks. ‘Th e people in their ordinary business would find the advantages of uniformity in currency; uniformity in security’, and have a ‘safeguard against depreciation’, said Chase.

You have the potential to be a great partner and to create successful, long-lasting, trustworthy, and mutually beneficial partnerships. The formula is simple. Again and again I have emphasized the importance of understanding yourself first. It all begins with you. You need to know what you want. You need to select a partner who can help you close the gap between what you can currently do and where you want to be. You need to follow a partnering process: the Partnership Continuum. You need to be sure to keep the task and relationship dynamics in balance. You need to practice the Six Partnering Attributes. And you need to improve continuously by using the Plan–Do–Check–Act cycle.
Follow the outline I have used in this blog. It works. Don’t deviate from it and don’t take shortcuts. Relationships take time to build; trust takes time to build; it takes time to communicate. But once you have laid the foundation, partnerships will create endless value for your business and help build the smart alliances you need to successfully compete in the future.

Exit barriers are also important as they vary widely across industries depending on the amount of sunk costs. These are costs a company will not recover when it exits a business.

Power of supplier: Integration potential Industry dynamics might be changed, for example, by vertical integration
of suppliers.

Threat by new competitors: High entry barriers can decrease the threat by new competitors. Entry barriers can result from:

• Economies of scale
• Product differentiation
• Cost advantages
• Capital needs
• Access to distribution channels
• Technology know-how
• Access to raw materials
• Location advantages
• Government subsidies
• Learning curve/product experience.

Threat by substitutes: The quality or price of substitutes poses a threat to an industry since those substitutes may induce a structural change of an industry.

Power of buyers: Price sensitivity and bargaining power of buyers have a great effect on the profitability of industries. The automobile industry is a good example at this point. The build-up of overcapacities created a buyers market.

The various types of competition can be grouped as follows:

Pure monopoly: Only one company provides a certain product or service in an area (e.g. post office, local utility companies). It is a result of regulation, patent, license or economies of scale. Earnings are highly predictable since competition is almost nonexistent and the degree of regulation is very high.

Pure oligopoly: A few companies produce the same commodity (e.g. oil, steel). There is enough market share for every competitor. Profit margins will depend on the economic cycle and the cyclicality of industries.

Differentiated oligopoly: A few companies produce partially differentiated products (e.g. cars, computers). The differentiation occurs along lines of quality, features, styling or services. Here it is important to evaluate the different business models of the companies. Profit margins will vary across different industries and companies.

Monopolistic competition: This industry consists of many competitors able to differentiate their products and services (e.g. food, beverage).

Pure competition: Many competitors offer the same product and service (e.g. commodity market). The degree of product differentiation gives an estimate about the margin structure of an industry. Alow product differentiation is accompanied by an intense price competition which results in low profit margins.

Corporate bond investors should target industries with a balanced business risk and financial risk profile. In mature industries cash flows become increasingly predictable and capital expenditures of companies tend to stabilize.

In such an industry the task is to select those companies who succeeded in controlling their cost structures and operate at efficient levels.

Those sectors will show a stable credit trend. Structural changes might push a whole industry into a declining stage. Companies out of those industries will experience structural losses, hence their credit metrics will deteriorate. Management will have no options available to stop this trend. In a next step the competitive environment of an industry has to be analyzed.

The 5-Forces diagram by Michael E. Porter summarizes best the interaction of an industry with its economic environment. An understanding of those relationships is essential for the projection of credit trends in a sector. The competitive environment determines profit margins and the pricing power of companies.

For a fixed income investor the best investments will be in sectors whose life cycle is in stages 3 and 4. Stage 1 is characterized by high business and financial risk. The rewards can be substantial but fatal losses can occur as well. The traditional financing sources for early stage industries are venture capital, private equity followed by the equity market. In stage 2 an industry will experience accelerating growth in sales and profits, but it can be assumed that all generated funds will be reinvested to grow the business, and financial discipline will not be a priority to management. Bondholder unfriendly corporate actions across the industry will increase the downside potential for corporate bond investors.

The analysis of an industry’s life cycle is useful for making projections about profit margins, earnings growth, trends in sales and profitability. To simplify things it is quite common to reduce the entire life cycle of an industry to 5 stages Such a 5-stage model is described by Reilly and Brown (2003). Abrief description of the different stages will follow next.

Pioneering development: A modest sales growth is accompanied by small or negative profit margins and profits. The firms face high R&D costs. Most recent examples are high-tech companies or internet-based companies with unproven business models. Most of the financing is obtained through venture capital or private equity.

Rapid accelerating growth: Demand for products and services grows and due to only few competitors, profit margins are high. Firms experience substantial backlogs and production capacity is being built up. At this stage successful companies will be able to access the capital markets for further financing.

Mature growth: An increasing number of competitors enter the market. The demand for the industry’s goods and services is satisfied, prices decline and profit margins begin to decline. At this stage financial discipline is important because future earnings might be lower due to competition. Companies with sustainable debt levels will benefit in the long run.

Stabilization and market maturity: The growth rate of the industry declines to the growth rate of the aggregate economy and profit growth will vary by industry due to different competitive structures. Competition will result in lower profit margins. In this stage industry trends will contribute to the development of aggregate credit quality.

Deceleration of growth and decline: Sales growth declines because of changes in demand and new substitutes. An increasing number of companies start to generate losses. The industry experiences a negative credit trend.

The sector selection is one of the most important performance drivers in a corporate bond portfolio. The overweighting and underweighting of different industries is a key element in a corporate bond strategy. The weighting of sectors in a corporate bond portfolio is the result of controlled deviations from the benchmark. They are based on the analysis of the operating environment of specific sectors, a bottom-up analysis of the respective companies and the risk-return profiles of bonds from a specific sector. It is advantageous to set up a corporate bond team by sectors because this structure allows an in-depth coverage of all sectors and the understanding of the competitive environment as well as the market positions and management strategies of single companies out of each sector. An industry consists of a group of firms which offer products that are close substitutes for each other.