If you’re moving to Canada, por qué es importante prestar atención a los cambios en el tipo de cambio entre los EE.UU.. y dólares canadienses?

Porque dependiendo de la forma en que las monedas se mueven, it can cost you big bucks.

Here’s what happened to the city of Vancouver.

As reported in today’s Vancouver Sun under the headline, “Exchange risk could cost city $60 millones de: Préstamo para la Villa Olímpica debe ser pagado en U.S. dollars bought when the loonie was aloft,” the city has gotten into trouble over the financing of the new Villa Olímpica:

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 De Desarrollo del Milenio, 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, luego cambió a loonies, para pagar a los contratistas.

That probably seemed swell at the time. Our loonie was flying high back then. For a period it was even at par, o por encima de la U.S. greenback, and seemed destined to float there. EE.UU.. dollars actually seemed cheap.

Por entonces, sabemos Milenio comenzó a dibujar hacia abajo sobre $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, más o menos. Millennium would have roughly gotten a one-to-one deal on its loan. Esto es: $1 Canadian = $1 US.

No está mal. How can you go wrong with a deal like that?

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

Foto por Payton Chung (Flickr)