Derivative markets enable corporations to shed physical assets while retaining economic control

Evidence

However, one of the most famous of the corporate catastrophes was the crippling $1.3 billion loss suffered in the early 1990s by Metallgesellschaft AG as a result of the over-ambitious but sensibly motivated use of oil and gasoline futures to hedge fixed-price contracts with the corporation’s customers. The difficulties of Enron, a pioneer of energy derivatives and of the “assetlight” virtualized corporation, are also notorious. (See MacKenzie 2003a.) Nevertheless, the use of derivatives is one factor making possible corporate structures in which the ownership of physical assets is of decreasing importance, risks are hedged financially, and the ownership of “virtual” assets such as intellectual property rights is more important. — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, 1181

Categorization

• XREF: Metallgesellschaft is the classic risk-management disaster case — connects to Culp & Miller’s debate over whether the hedge was sound, and to later derivative-loss literature. — connects to: Financial derivatives now substitute for physical and organizational means of managing corporate risk — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial…, 1178; Derivatives let investors trade an asset’s attributes without the asset itself — Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media: How Wall Street…, 486
• SEED: Angle: ‘the asset-light firm’ as a species of performativity — how the existence of hedging instruments changed what a corporation even is.

Broader Connections

• Derivatives let investors trade an asset’s attributes without the asset itself #expands (0.82) — Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media, 486