24 June 2013

tranche

[trahnch, trahnsh; French trahnsh]

noun

1. Finance.
a. one part or division of a larger unit, as of an asset pool or investment: The loan will be repaid in three tranches.
b. a group of securities that share a certain characteristic and form part of a larger offering: The second tranche of the bond issue has a five-year maturity.
2. any part, division, or installment: We’ve hired the first tranche of researchers.
verb (used with object), tranched, tranch·ing.
3. Finance. to divide into parts: tranched debt; A credit portfolio can be tranched into a variety of components that are then further subdivided.
Origin:
1930–35; < French: literally, ‘a slice’ < Old French, < trenchier, trancher ‘to cut’; see trench

Today’s aphorism

The cause of most of man’s unhappiness is sacrificing what he wants most for what he wants now.

– Gordon B. Hinckley

On this day

24 June 1997 – the United States Air Force releases a report into the so-called ‘Roswell Incident’ in which there had been claims that an alien craft had crashed near Roswell, New Mexico, and the body of an alien was retrieved by the Air Force. The USAF report claimed that the bodies witnesses had seen were actually life-sized dummies.

24 June 2010 – Julia Gillard is appointed Australia’s first female prime minister after replacing Kevin Rudd in a leadership spill.

24 June 1950 – The Korean War begins as North Korean forces invade South Korea in response to the dividing of the Korean Peninsula by Allied forces after World War II. The US sends troops as part of the UN response to repel North Korea. In 1953 a demilitarised zone is established between North and South Korea. Although conflict ended in 1953 following a truce, both sides have remained on military alert ever since. Political posturing and a number of border clashes in the years since 1953 have brought the peninsula to the brink of war on numerous occasions.