Without Financial Engineering

There is an a/f/r (antagonist/fuzzy/relative) relationship, among many risk-varieties.

• antagonist e.g: A flipped-coin is either head, or tail.
• fuzzy e.g: Neither icecream, nor hot-chestnut may sell a lot, if warm&windy
• relative e.g: In USA, if to trade with Japan, why bother the "US$-vs.-Euro?"

That is, the risk is not exactly "zero-sum." And this does complicate speculation.

a/f/r moderation

If the aim is not to speculate-to-earn, but risk-moderation, a remedy is easier to find. At least, the relativity is mostly removed away, as we know who we are, and what risk we want to avoid. And next, the antagonism may leave, too, if we may moderate our risk with a variety of the old aphorism "do not put every egg, in the same bowl."

For risk-moderation, there are mainly two, very-opposed strategies

• firmaze. Any would buy many (e.g: invest in an icecream- & a chestnut-firm)
• fi-eng. The corporate is a long-term entity, with blurred-company-operation

A farmaze is an example of a firmaze. From farm to table, every move is a firm - with independent finance. It is versatile, easy-to-verify (with arithmetic), and Islamic.

By contrast, fi-eng is "what only fi-eng experts may understand" - if that. Why mess?

As "a corporate-strategy aid," the fi-eng cases of Tufano (1996), were not convincing enough - if I may offer a few (free-market friendly) remedies, in each case.

• Enron (natural gas): Volatile prices.
• TVA (electricity): Capacity increase.
• Rhone Poulenc (chemical): Decreasing risk for shareholders (employees).
• Cemex (cement): Decreasing risk for shareholders. An issue with Mexico-specific laws. May skip?

to replace the old corporation

Dump fi-eng away. Re-structure the situation so that the financial risk decisions are made by the (potential) stock-holders, not by the corporate-board.

A replacement may realize in two varieties.

• real: investor (a human, or a fund) is the preference-maker, as with a firmaze
• minor: corporate-differentiation, within (or, from) itself

In the minor case, the corporate-stock is still the only way the investor may invest-or-not in that corp, but within itself, some autonomy may exist, and open to the investor.

e.g: If the functionality may shift from season-to-season, let people know it, and people may buy/sell stocks - at the gap time, while the machinery are shifted from winter- to summer-time production.

As a real-world example of minor-change, zoom in to the article in Newsweek-International, on Feb.8,1993, 36-39. It was about resignation of IBM (ex-)CEO J.Akers. (The cover of the mag was a big IBM logo, with a title "Fall of a Titan, struggle to reshape America's bluechip companies.") That article exemplifies that

• the corporate-units may compete, as in (the successful) Johnson&Johnson
• J.Akers thought a confederation of units, too. Lexmark got out of IBM
• J.Akers resigned. Who would guarantee what would the next CEO do?

If that is democracy-within-corporation (as the J&J units compete), why not firmaze?

With a firmaze, people experience affine-finance, as every firm is a well-defined project. Take notice of the, firmer-rating, firm-risk-rating, whether-to-RRRR, etc.

Further Reading

I think, a firmaze vs. a (concealed-operations) corporation with fi-eng, is an example of the armageddon scenario, as I have thought of it. In the modern world, a huge corporation, is in control of more wealth than a lot of little nations. And economy is next of kin of war - as eople war for wealth, and people finance war with wealth. Therefore, a domination (if not infiltration) of the corporate-boards by the , is a threat.