It's official.
Jamaica's catastrophe bond is paying out in full.
It's World Business Express from the BBC World Service.
I'm Leanna Byrne.
Elon Musk just secured a trillion dollar pay offer from Tesla.
We meet a US tax lawyer who's now running a hot dog stand during the government shutdown.
Today, the World Bank has confirmed that Jamaica will receive a full 150 million payout from its catastrophe bond.
That's the maximum amount possible after Hurricane Melissa met the pre-agreed trigger conditions.
It's the first time Jamaica's insurance since bond has paid out in full and the money should reach the government within days.
A catastrophe bond or a cap bond is essentially an insurance policy funded by investors.
Countries like Jamaica pay interest to investors each year, and if a disaster as severe as Category 5 hurricane hits, those investors lose some or all of their money and the funds go straight to the government for recovery.
In an exclusive interview, Jorge Familiar, the World Bank's Vice President and Treasurer, told me that financial markets will play more of a role in disaster relief.
When you think about disaster risk management from a financial point of view, countries that are well prepared and that is the case of Jamaica have different layers of protection to cover different types of risk.
Catastrophe bonds usually are at the very top of the pyramid, and they are intended to cover for potential disasters which are significant in nature but also have a low probability of occurrence.
This is the type of disaster that a catastrophe bond is designed to cover.
So do you think this type of private capital will increasingly play a role in disaster relief?
Financial capital markets for sure will play a role.
Catastrophe bonds are instruments which are very effective in transferring risks to financial markets.
And then on the market side, you have investors that are interested in getting exposure to disaster risk for diversification purposes.
The payout here is 150 million, but the estimated total damage is about 6 to 7 billion.
I've seen
So is that really enough to make a meaningful difference?
Well, a good disaster risk management strategy has multiple layers, right?
And relies on multiple instruments to help countries recover from disasters.
Now, it is also a fact that, at times, natural disasters are of such magnitude that even a robust safety net might not be enough.
So usually countries...
Already, from a budgetary perspective, countries that are well prepared tend to have funds set aside to face natural disasters.
And then they seek availability of credit lines in case of a natural disaster.
You have a market and you have investors that are interested in getting exposure to disaster risk right.
What these investors are doing is they are buying a financial instrument that has an attractive return over time.
You know, investors are not donors, right?
They are taking exposure to a certain risk and getting a return for it.
And, on the other hand, you have countries that have a need to hedge and are paying a premium in order to get the coverage that they need in order to face natural disasters.
I'm just wondering, is there a broader imbalance there?
Because it's the wealthy nations that are responsible for most of the emissions that are driving these storms.
So why should countries like Jamaica have to pay investors the interest to ensure against disasters that they didn't really cause?
That is a broader debate.
The fact is that countries are exposed to multiple risks, some linked to climate, others linked to other types of natural disasters.
Right
So, from a perspective of development, it's extremely important to be prepared for what might come and might have a negative impact on development and well-being of the population.
So I do believe that it's important for countries to be proactive in building robust financial safety nets to face potential disasters.
That was Jorge Familiar, the World Bank's Vice President and Treasurer.
ITV, which is one of the UK's biggest broadcasters, has confirmed it's in talks with Comcast, owner of Sky, to sell its broadcasting arm for around 2 billion.
The sale would cover ITV's free-to-air channels and its streaming platform ITVX, but not its production company, ITV Studios, which makes global hits like Love Island and I'm a Celebrity.
Get Me Outta Here.
Let's have a listen to this.
The moment last night that shareholders approved a pay package for Elon Musk that could, years from now, make him the world's first dollar trillionaire.
We have a fantastic board, fantastic group of shareholders.
Thank you all.
And what we're about to embark upon is not merely a new chapter of the future of Tesla, but a whole new book.
And I want to talk about...
Randeep Samal is fund manager at M&G Investments.
Randeep, it's not a done deal, isn't it?
It's not just that he just gets the money.
That's right, Leanne, it's not.
He has to hit certain hurdles over the next 10 years, nine tranches to be exact, in order to get there.
And to give you an idea of what they are and just how big they are.
It will completely transform Tesla, if he does.
The market capitalization will have to move from 1 trillion today to 85 trillion by the year 2035.
The earnings of Tesla would need to go from $16 billion today to $400 billion by 2035.
And on top of that, he needs to sell 1 million humanoid robots, none sold yet, 1 million robo-taxes.
10 million subscribers signed up to Tesla's full self-serving vehicles and also 20 million cars.
So he set himself some very lofty goals.
Absolutely, Randeep.
I don't think I could meet any of those goals.
Randeep Samal, thank you so much.
Now it's 38 days into the US government shutdown and federal workers are still waiting to get back to their jobs.
But one government tax lawyer in Washington, DC is staying busy in a rather unusual way.
He's using his time on furlough to go full time running a hot dog stand.
And get this, he's still wearing his office suit.
Meet Isaac Stein.
I loved the idea of running a hot dog stand as a little boy when I was six or seven.
Then when I was in grade school, there was an event where at the elementary school gym.
And so at that event, they had a concession stand.
I think the intent was that each boy on the team would spend a half hour manning the concession stand.
But I had way more interest in the concession stand.
And I got so much energy from connecting, hanging out chatting, just making small talk and learning about people's day to day.
I knew that I wanted to do this later in life.
So I
In June I made the decision.
I'm just going to go for this and actually set up the hot dog cart business.
And I was fully permitted by the 23rd of September, and I started selling that week.
And then I was doing my full-time office job and then also selling on Fridays and weekends.
And then on October 8th, when the shutdown happened, what changed for me was that I had the time to now do this full-time.
Hopefully at some point this will get resolved.
So what happens to you?
Do you go back to your job or do you continue what you're doing?
My plan is to go back to the office job as soon as possible and then continue to operate the hot dog stand in the way that I intended it to operate, which was as a side project.
How do you feel about the shutdown in general?
I have no comment on the shutdown itself, but I can say that myself, all my colleagues, colleagues and other furloughed federal workers who have come to the hot dog stand,
A very unified sentiment is everyone just wants to get back to work and keep serving the American people.
I'm sure you come across a lot of people even just talking to you at the hot dog stand and you're swapping stories.
Oh, absolutely.
It is a functional hot dog stand, but most of the intent is as an art project.
And part of what I'm trying to do in a very small way is is create a space where people can just hang out chat, swap stories and just have fun.
I've been really overjoyed seeing people have organic conversations and just talk to each other in the line, because unfortunately I can only steam six buns at a time.
So there's been a bit of a line wish I could go visit.
That was IRS tax lawyer turned hot dog stand owner, Isaac Stein.
And that's it from us, from World Business Express.
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Thanks for listening.
