If you’re moving to Canada, لماذا من المهم أن دفع الانتباه إلى التغيرات في سعر الصرف بين الامريكية. الدولار الكندي Ùˆ?

لأن هذا يتوقف على الطريقة العملات تتحرك, it can cost you big bucks.

Here’s what happened to the city of Vancouver.

As reported in today’s فانكوفر صن under the headline, “Exchange risk could cost city $60 مليون: يجب أن يسدد قرض للقرية الأولمبية في الامريكية. dollars bought when the loonie was aloft,” the city has gotten into trouble over the financing of the new القرية الاولمبية:

Just when you thought you’ve computed all the risks from the Olympic village crisis, here’s another. The $1.2-billion development has been financed using international “currency swaps,” one of the riskiest ways to borrow.

Here’s the situation.

The builder of the Olympic village, Vancouver’s الإنمائية للألفية, arranged to borrow its construction budget for the Olympic Athletes’ Village from Wall Street’s Fortress Investment Group. That $750-million line of credit was to be borrowed in U.S. dollars, ثم تبادلت إلى مجانين, لدفع المقاولين.

That probably seemed swell at the time. Our loonie was flying high back then. For a period it was even at par, أو فوق الامريكية. greenback, and seemed destined to float there. الولايات المتحدة. dollars actually seemed cheap.

حول ثم, ونحن نعلم بدأت الألفية لسحب حوالي $300 million of that $750 million Fortress loan, though exact dates of when money was drawn aren’t public. But supposing Millennium made its draw when the loonie was at par, أو هكذا. Millennium would have roughly gotten a one-to-one deal on its loan. هذا هو: $1 Canadian = $1 US.

Not bad. How can you go wrong with a deal like that?

جيد, quite easily when world currency currents turn against you.

Photo by Payton Chung (فليكر)