Quarterly Income Preferred Securities - QUIPS

Those funny little things people say in movies that always seem so charming, but when you try it in real life, people just look at you awkwardly for a second and then change the subject.

Wait...different kind of quip. These QUIPS relate to a particular kind of tradable security. They represent a relatively complicated structure that allows companies to raise money, while receiving a tax benefit.

Here's how it works: a company needs to raise some cash. Rather than selling stock or issuing debt (or just getting a loan), it sets up a special purpose LLC. The sole purpose of this limited partnership is to issue QUIPS, which get sold on an exchange like preferred stock.

The QUIPS are used to raise funds. The money raised by selling the securities then gets loaned to the parent corporation. The parent company then uses the cash...paying the money back (like a regular loan) to the specially-created LLC that issued the QUIPS. These loan payments fund quarterly dividends, paid to the people holding the QUIPS.

The parent company gets the cash it needs, and investors get a steady dividend. Meanwhile, the corporation also gets to deduct the interest payments it makes related to the QUIPS from its taxes.