Cheese stacking

[whinfell]

Delicious collateral: the Italian bank that loans money against cheese

A small Italian bank is giving a select group of dairy farmers the opportunity to finance their operations with cheese.

In the Emilia Romagna region of northern Italy, a network of small dairy farmers produce the "king of cheeses", Parmigiano Reggiano.

For decades now, their local bank, Credito Emiliano (Credem for short), has run a unique financing scheme for the farmers: a cheese bank.

Parmigiano Reggiano is a hard cheese with long history. To be certified, it must come from cows' milk produced in defined parts of the Italian provinces of Reggio Emilia, Parma and Modena.

If its production is in line with the strict "product designation of origin" (PDO) guidelines, then Credem will accept it as collateral for loans it gives to farmers.

Despite this sounding like a fringe finance scheme, Credem is one of Italy's safest, most highly capitalised and conservative banks.

ABC News: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-21/banking-on-cheese/6711648

 

[col0016]

Then they loan out 9kgs of cheese for every 1kg they have.

 

[Davros10]

...and then draw up 90kg of cheese backed derivatives

 

[fiatphoney]

It is the mice that rule, the Micini family are cornering the cheese market.

 

[House]

I don't believe the banks would do that, it's too Gouda to be true.

 

[alor]

they got stuck with those cheese

the fallout of the EU sanctions against RusFed

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_P1U0OM3sk[/youtube]

 

[Revils]

Unbrielievable

 

[whinfell]

All these puns are beginning to grate with me!

 

[Stoic Phoenix]

Frankly my dear I dont give Edam

 

[hiho]

Well its good to see the farmers will get their whey now

 

[fiatphoney]

I am legenDAIRY true blue.

 

[whinfell]

More from the cheese economy

Dairy cooperative issues bonds guaranteed by Parmesan cheese after banks refuse to lend

Fed up with their banks' reluctance to lend, an Italian dairy cooperative has raised 6 million euros by issuing bonds guaranteed by huge wheels of Parmesan cheese.

"We already have some loans but, after a certain point, the banks don't want to give you any more," said Andrea Setti, the financial controller of the 4 Madonne cooperative.

The cooperative, based near Modena in northern Italy, produces the famous cheese from milk supplied by some 40 dairy farmers.

It has seen business boom in recent years with production rising to 75,000 wheels a year and turnover hitting 24 million euros in 2014.

But when it sought additional funding to boost its presence in the US market and concentrate on longer-aged cheeses, the cooperative ran into a wall of indifference from traditional lenders still recovering from the 2007-08 financial crisis.

The solution lay in an Italian Government-backed mini-bonds scheme under which investors provide funding for six years in return for a 5 per cent yield backed by cheese assets valued at 120 per cent of the bonds' worth.

The principle behind the scheme is not entirely unheard of in the region: several banks already hold hundreds of thousands of Parmesan wheels as guarantees of loans to local producers.

And the use of bonds to offset the capital costs involved in storing luxury products until maturity is already common in the whisky and wine industries.

AFP

Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-...nne-dairy-coop-raise-six-million-euro/7138416

 

[systematic]

They would have to be crackers to go for that ...