Pioneer Investments founded in 1928, is the trade name for Pioneer Global Asset Management S.p.A. and its subsidiaries. Pioneer Investments is a global investment firm with offices in 28 countries, over 2,000 employees and €223.6 billion in assets under management as of December 31, 2015. Pioneer Global Asset Management S.p.A. was a wholly owned subsidiary of UniCredit S.p.A. it was sold to Amundi in December 2016.
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Sukuk (Arabic: صكوك‎‎ ṣukūk, plural of صك ṣakk, "legal instrument, deed, cheque") is the Arabic name for financial certificates, also commonly referred to as "sharia compliant" bonds. Sukuk are defined by the AAOIFI (Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions) as "securities of equal denomination representing individual ownership interests in a portfolio of eligible existing or future assets." The Fiqh academy of the OIC legitimized the use of sukuk in February 1988.
Sukuk were developed as an alternative to conventional bonds which are not considered permissible by many Muslims as they pay interest and may finance businesses involved in non-Sharia-compliant activities (gambling, alcohol, pork, etc.). Sukuk securities are structured to comply by not paying interest, generally by involving a tangible asset in the investment. For example, by giving partial ownership of a property built by the investment company to the bond owners who collect the profit as rent, which is allowed under Islamic law. Like a bond, upon expiration of the Sukuk, the regular payments cease.
According to the State of the Global Islamic Economy Report 2016/17, of the $2.004 trillion of assets being managed in a sharia compliant manner in 2015, $342 billion were sukuk, being made up of 2,354 sukuk issues.
In common usage outside of Arabic-speaking countries, the word "sukuk" is often used both as singular as well as plural. (In proper Arabic, "sukuk" is plural, "sakk" is singular.)
In the classical period of Islam, Sakk (sukuk) meant any document representing a contract or conveyance of rights, obligations or monies done in conformity with the Shariah. The term was used to refer to forms of papers representing financial obligations originating from trade and other commercial activities in the Islamic pre-modern period.
According to Camille Paldi, the first sukuk transaction took place in Damascus in its Great Mosque in the 7th Century AD. The modern Western word “cheque†appears to have been derived from “sakk†(singular of sukuk), which during the middle ages referred to a written agreement "to pay for goods when they were delivered" and was used to "avoid money having to be transported across dangerous terrain".
Answering a need to provide short and medium term instruments so that balance sheets of Islamic financial institutions could be more liquid, the Fiqh academy of the OIC (Organization of Islamic Countries) legitimized the use of sukuk in February 1988.
In 1990 one of the first contemporary sukukâ€"worth RM125 millionâ€"were issued by Malaysia Shell MDS Sdn Bhd, on the basis of bai' bithaman ajil. There were no other sukuk issued until 2000 when the market began to take off. In 2000, the government of Sudan issued domestic sovereign short-term sukuk worth 77 million Sudanese pounds on the basis of musharaka. In 2001, the sukuk market went international with the issuance of the first US-dollar-denominated ijara sukuk, worth $100 million by the Central Bank of Bahrain. Since then many sovereign and corporate sukuk issues have been offered in various jurisdictions.
To standardize the growing market, the AAOIF issued "Shari’ah Standard No.17" on ‘Investment Sukuk’ in May 2003. It became effective starting January 1, 2004.
As of early 2017, there were US$328 billion worth of sukuk outstanding worldwide. As of the end of 2016, there were about 146 US Dollar-denominated, Islamic fixed income securities issued in the global markets, that were investment-grade, and had a duration of at least one year. These securities -- which make up the Citi Sukuk Index -- had an average maturity of 4.54 years, and most were issued by governments. The top four issuers by market weight -- making up over 40% of the market -- were: ISLAMIC DEVELOPMENT BANK, PERUSAHAAN PENERBIT SBSN INDOIII, SAUDI ELECTRICITY CO, SOQ SUKUK A QSC. About 3/4 of the sukuk market however, is domestic not interntional. As of 2015, there were 2,354 sukuk issues in total, including local currency denominated, non-global market sukuk, according to Thomson Reuters & Dinar Standard.
Sukuk securities tend to be bought and held. As a result few securities enter the secondary market to be traded. Furthermore, only public Sukuk are able to enter this market, as they are listed on stock exchanges.
The secondary marketâ€"whilst developingâ€"remains a niche segment with virtually all of the trading done at the institution level. The size of the secondary market remains unknown, though LMC Bahrain states they traded $55.5 million of Sukuk in 2007. As of July 2014 sukuk.com listed fifteen sukuk on the secondary market for Gulf Sukuk.
Ali Arsalan Tariq states that Islamic finance -- including sukuk -- is based on a set of several prohibitions:
As Shari’ah considers money to be a measuring tool for value and not an asset in itself, it requires that one should not receive income from money (or anything that has the genus of money) alone, as this (simplistically, interest) is "riba", and forbidden. From a Sharia perspective, certificates of debt are not tradable except at their par value (although a different view is held by many in Malaysia).
While a bond is a contractual debt obligation of the issuer to pay to bondholders, on certain specified dates, interest and principal; a Sukuk is a certificate giving Sukuk holders an undivided beneficial ownership in the underlying assets. Consequently, Sukuk holders are entitled to share in the revenues generated by the Sukuk assets as well as being entitled to share in the proceeds of the realization of the Sukuk assets.
The AAOIFI (Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions, the body which issues standards on accounting, auditing, governance, ethical, and Shari'a standards) defines Sukuk as "securities of equal denomination representing individual ownership interests in a portfolio of eligible existing or future assets," or "‘certificates of equal value representing undivided shares in the ownership of tangible assets, usufructs and services or (in the ownership of) the assets of particular projects or special investment activity’."
The Islamic Financial Services Board defines sukuk as
"certificates with each sakk representing a proportional undivided ownership right in tangible assets, or a pool of predominantly tangible assets, or a business venture. These assets may be in a specific project or investment activity in accordance with Sharia rules and principles.
The Securities Commission of Malaysia defined sukuk as a document or certificate, which represents the value of an asset.
Sharia forbids both the trading of short-term debt instruments except at face value, and the drawing upon the established interbank money markets (both being seen as transactions involve interest and excessive uncertainty (Gharar)). As a consequence, prior to the development of the sukuk market, the balance sheets of Islamic financial institutions tended to be highly illiquid and lacking in short and medium term investment opportunities for their current assets.
Sukuk are structured in several different ways. (The AAOIFI has laid down 14 different types of sukuk.) While a conventional bond is a promise to repay a loan, sukuk constitute partial ownership in a debt, asset, project, business or investment.
The most commonly used sukuk structures replicate the cash flows of conventional bonds. Such structures are listed on exchanges, commonly the Luxembourg Stock Exchange and London Stock Exchange in Europe, and made tradable through conventional organisations like Euroclear or Clearstream. A key technique to achieve capital protection without amounting to a loan is a binding promise to repurchase certain assets; e.g. in the case of Sukuk Al Ijara, by the issuer. In the meantime a rent is being paid, which is often benchmarked to an interest rate (LIBOR is the most common though its use is criticized by some Sharia Scholars).
The most accepted structure, which is tradable, is thereafter the Sukuk Al Ijara. Debt certificates can only be bought before the finance occurs and then held to maturity, from an Islamic perspective. This is critical for debt trading at market value without incurring the prohibited riba (interest on money).
Step-by-step process of issuing a sukuk based on an asset:
In this type of sukuk, fixed interest of a conventional bond is replaced by fixed lease income. Islamic economist Muhammad Akram Khan complains that sukuk are "different from conventional finance in form and formalities rather than substance", and "may even be more expensive" for the income provided than a conventional bond.
An example of a sukuk was a $100 million security used to finance the construction and delivery of cooling plants in Abu Dhabi. This sukuk had a istisna'a and ijara structure and was issued by the Tabreed Financing Corporation (or National Central Cooling Company PJSC) in March 2004.
If some "dissolution event" (e.g. destruction of the leased property) had interrupted the payment of rent this would have prompted “the continuation of payments in the form of repurchase priceâ€. This reduced the risk structure of the sukuk to that (or near that) of conventional bonds, which permits the sukuk to earn the same or close to the same credit ratings that conventional bonds earn. Consequently they are able to be sold at an interest rater lower than they might otherwise, although their transactions costs are higher than conventional bonds because of the creation of SPVs, as well as payment of various jurist and legal fees for structuring the bond issuance.
According to a 2015 IMF report, the supply of Sukuk, "falls short of demand" and, with some exceptions "issuance takes place without a comprehensive strategy to develop the domestic market".
Sukuk are seen as well-suited for infrastructure financing because of their risk-sharing property could also help fill financing gaps. National authorities should, therefore, focus on developing the necessary infrastructure, including promoting true securitization and enhanced clarity over investors’ rights, and on stepping up regular sovereign issuance to provide a benchmark for the private sector. Increased sovereign issuance should be underpinned by sound public financial management.
"Key challenges" to the Islamic finance industry as a whole -- including sukuk -- as of 2016 include (according to the State of the Global Islamic Economy Report, 2015/16 and the IMF) are
As of 2009, there were a number of cases where the sukuk had defaulted or were in serious trouble. In May 2009, Investment Dar of Kuwait defaulted on $100 million sukuk. Saad Group set up a committee to restructure $650 million Golden Belt 1 sukuk. Standard & Poor's cut the rating of that sukuk "owning to the non-availability of vital information". East Cameron Partners ECP issued a multiple-award-winning sukuk in 2006 but filed for bankruptcy in October 2008, prompting a legal dispute about the creditors' right to $167.67 million in sukuk assets. S&P downgraded the sukuk of Dubai Islamic bank and Sharjah Islamic Bank. According to one estimate, the credit crunch in the global Financial crisis of 2007â€"08 could result in defaults of 5-8% of the sukuk.
According to Ibrahim Warde as of 2010,
What is till unclear is what happens to sukuk when they fail -- an issue that has not been tested in court. In Malaysia, some sukuk issues have junk status, and two other sukuk are already in default: the Easter Cameron Gas company in the United States and Investment Dar of Kuwait. One of the unresolved questions is whether sukuk holders should stand in the line of creditors or in the line of the owners of underlying assets."
According to Rodney Wilson, when sukuk payments are delayed or fail, "the means of redress are potentially more complex than for conventional notes and bonds". In particular "under Shari’ah leniency towards debtors is favoured", which inevitably raises moral hazard problems.
Sukuk have been criticized as evading the restrictions on riba.
In February 2008, the AAOIFI's board of scholars, led by "the granddaddy of modern-day Islamic finance" Sheik Muhammad Taqi Usmani, stated that as many as 85 percent of sukuk sold to date may not comply with all the precepts of Shariah. In a paper entitled "Sukuk and their Contemporary Applications" released in November 2007, Usmani identified the following three key structuring elements that differentiate Sukuk from conventional bonds:
Usmani stated that by complex mechanisms Sukuk had taken on the same characteristics as conventional interest-bearing bonds, as they do not return to investors more than a fixed percentage of the principal, based on interest rates, while guaranteeing the return of investors' principal at maturity. Usmani estimated that 85% of all Sukuk in issuance were not Shariah-compliant due to the existence of guaranteed returns and/or repurchase obligations from the issuer.
Following Usmani's criticisms the global sukuk market shrunk from US$50 billion in 2007 to approximately $14.9 billion in 2008, although how much of this was due to his criticisms or the Global Financial Crisis is a matter of debate.
Other critics include non-orthodox economist Mahmoud El-Gamal, who has complained that while providers of sukuk (and other Islamic finance instruments) will often describe their "distinguishing feature" as the "prohibition of interest", they will then
proceed to report the interest rate that Islamic instruments pay. For instance, Reuters’ August 13, 2002, coverage of Bahrain’s $800 million sukuk (the Arabic term for “Islamic bondsâ€) followed their characterization of Islamic financial products as “interest-free†with a report that those sukuk will pay “4 percent annual profit.â€
He also complains that despite claims that sukukâ€"unlike conventional bondsâ€"share the risk of their underlying asset and may increase or decrease in value, in sukuk such as the Tabreed sukuk mentioned above, steady payment of "rent" is written into the sukuk contract giving them a risk structure "essentially" the same as conventional bonds.
Another observer, Salman Ali, found that many of the sukuk structures "do not conform to the Shariah". According to Ali, while most of the sukuk make an effort to remain "within Shariah bounds", they "replicate conventional debt instruments". They often combine more than one contract, "which individually may be Shariah-compliant" but when combined "may defeat the objective of the shariah". Furthermore, the sukuk rate of return is often "tied" to the Libor (London interbank offered rate) or Euribor (euro interbank offered rate) interest rate "rather than to the underlying business" that the sukuk is financing. This makes the sukuk "so similar to conventional debt instruments that it is difficult to tell one from the other". This is perhaps why rating agencies such as Standard & Poors and Moody's apply the same methodology for rating sukuk as for conventional debt instruments.
In 2011, Safari conducted various statistical and econometrics tests to check the argument that sukuk securities are merely the same as conventional bond. However, his results on the comparison of yield to maturity of sukuk and that of conventional bonds show that sukuk securities are different from conventional bonds. In response to this argument, it was pointed out that yield to maturity reflects the interplay of supply and demand which may be affected by a financial product's packaging and target market rather than just the substance of the product alone. In 2011 Goldman Sacks abandoned a $2 billion sukuk programme in had registered with the Irish Stock Exchange, after some analysts stated that its sukuk "might violate Islamic bans on interest payments and monetary speculation" (in 2014 it successfully drew about $1.5 billion in orders for the five-year sukuk).
Bahrain is a major issuer of sukuk.
Starting in 2006 the Brunei Government issued short-term Sukuk Al-Ijarah securities. As of 2017 they have issued over B$9.605 billion worth.
On 8 May 2013, Egyptian President Muhammad Morsi approved a law allowing the government to issue sukuk, however as of May 2013 the relevant regulations have not been specified. As of 2016 the Egyptian government stated it would use "innovative financial tools for the implementation of government projects", such as Sukuk.
In 2007, Gambia replaced Sudan as one of the ten countries issuing sukuk. It has one of the lowest amount of sukuk issuance, with $12.6 mil as of 2008.
According to islamicfinance.com, at end-2013 outstanding stock in Indonesia’s sukuk market was US$12.3 billion, with growth coming driven from the government sector.
Although the first use of Islamic financial instruments in Iran goes back to 1994 with the issuance of Musharakah sukuk by Tehran Municipality to finance Navab project, the enactment of Iran securities market law, and new instruments and financial institutions development law was done respectively in 2005 and 2010 to pave the way for the appliance of such instruments to develop financial system of the country. The first Ijarah sukuk was issued in Iranian Capital Market in January 2011 for financing Mahan Air company with the value of 291,500 million Rials. From April to December 2011, financing through Ijarah sukuk in capital market was reached to 3,673,750 million Rials.
More than half of sukuk issues worldwide are in the Malaysian Ringgi currency. (US dollar denominated sukuk are second.) Malaysia is one of the few countries that makes it mandatory for sukuk and other debt papers to be rated. RAM Rating Services Bhd CEO Foo Su Yin says the total issuance of sukuk corporate bonds in 2012 was RM 71.7 billion while conventional bonds totalled RM48.3 billion. As at 2011, Malaysia was the highest global sukuk issuer by issuing 69 percent of world's total issuances.
In June 2012, Kazakhstan finalized its debut sukuk which will be issued by the Development Bank of Kazakhstan (DBK) in the Malaysian market. The DBK, which is 100% owned by the government of Kazakhstan, is working with HSBC and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) to manage the ringgit-denominated issuance which is effectively a quasi-sovereign offering. The issuance will be listed on the Kazakhstan Stock Exchange, which has developed the infrastructure to list Islamic financial products such as Ijara and Musharaka Sukuk and investment funds.
Pakistan issued a sukuk of $1 billion to fund a trade deficit with a yield of 5%.
Qatar authorities and government related companies are looking into funding for its infrastructure projects by issuing Sukuk. In 2011 Qatar issued 11 percent of global Sukuk.
Singapore was the first non-Muslim majority country to issue a Sovereign Sukuk in 2009. Called the MAS Sukuk domestically, it is issued via a wholly owned subsidiary of the Monetary Authority of Singapore - Singapore Sukuk Pte Ltd. The Singapore MAS Sukuk is treated similarly to the conventional Singapore Government Securities ("SGS")in aspects such as compliance with liquidity requirements.
Since then there have been several Sukuk issuances in Singapore by local and foreign issuers. Singapore City Development Limited issued the first Ijara Sukuk in 2009, and Khazanah Shd Bhd issued a SGD1.5 billion Sukuk in 2010 to finance its acquisition of parkway holdings. In 2013, there were 2 new Sukuk Programmes arranged for Singapore listed companies - Swiber Holdings & Vallianz Holdings, with the former issuing a SGD150 million 5 year sukuk in Aug 2013.
The Somalia Stock Exchange (SSE) is the national bourse of Somalia. In August 2012, the SSE signed a Memorandum of Understanding to assist it in technical development. The agreement includes identifying appropriate expertise and support. Sharia compliant sukuk bonds and halal equities are also envisioned as part of the deal as the nascent stock market develops.
Turkey issued its debut sukuk in October 2012. The October 2012 issuance was a double issuance, with one being in US Dollars (issued on 10 October 2012 for $1.5B), and one being in Turkish Lira (issued on 2 October 2012 for 1.62LRY). According to data from Sukuk.com, the US Dollars issuance was oversubscribed and was initially planned to be for $1 billion, but because of strong demand from the Middle East it was increased to $1.5 billion.
Turkey returned to the Sukuk market in October 2013 with a $1.25B issuance.
As of January 2015, NASDAQ Dubai has listed 18 sukuk valued at a total $24 billion. The latest of these is Fly Dubai. The UAE has also attracted Western investment in the form of GE, which sold a 5-year, $500 million sukuk in 2009, and investment banker Goldman Sachs, which became first conventional U.S. bank to issue sukuk in 2014.
On 25 June 2014, HM Treasury became the first country outside of the Islamic world to issue a Sukuk. This £200 million issue was 11.5 times oversubscribed and was priced at the same level as the equivalent UK Gilts (UK government bonds) at 2.036% pa. The Sukuk was linked to the rental income of UK government property.
Hong Kong has issued two sovereign Sukuk as of middle of 2015. It issued its first issuance consisting of a 5-year $1 billion Ijara Sukuk in September 2014 offering a profit rate of 2.005%. It issued its second sovereign Sukuk in June 2015 also for $1 billion with a 5-year maturity which used an innovative Wakala structure offering a profit rate of 1.894%.
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The subject of car finance comprises the different financial products which allows someone to acquire a car with any arrangement other than a single lump payment. The provision of car finance by a third party supplier allows the acquirer to provide for and raise the funds to compensate the initial owner, either a dealer or manufacturer.
Car finance is required by both private individuals and businesses. All types of finance products are available to either sector, however the market share by finance type for each sector differs, partly because business contract hire can provide tax and cashflow benefits to businesses.
Personal Car Finance is a complete subsector of personal finance, with numerous different products available. These include a straightforward car loan, hire purchase, personal contract hire (car leasing) and Personal Contract Purchase. Therefore, car finance includes but is not limited to vehicle leasing. These different types of car finance are possible because of the high residual value of cars and the second hand car market, which enables other forms of financing beyond pure unsecured loans.
Car finance arose because the price of cars was out of the reach of individual purchasers without borrowing the money. The funding for personal car finance is provided either by a retail bank or a specialist car financing company. Some car manufacturers own their own car financing arms, such as Ford with the Ford Motor Credit Company and General Motors with its GMAC Financial Services arm, which has now been renamed and rebranded as Ally Financial. Indirect auto lenders may set risk-based interest rate, or “buy rate,†that it conveys to auto dealers. Car companies may then allow their auto dealers to charge a higher interest rate when they finalize the deal with the consumer. This is typically called “dealer markup.†Markups can generate compensation for dealers and some (those of GM's Ally and Honda) have been found to use the discretion to charge consumers different rates regardless of consumer creditworthiness.
The funding supplier may retain ownership of the car during the period of the contract for certain types of financing. This interim ownership by a third party and subsequent leasing to the acquirer is far more typical for business assets than private ones, with the option of vehicle leasing being the major exception for private consumers.
The finance is arranged either by the dealer which provides the car or by independent finance brokers who work on commission.
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The Central Financial Work Commission (CFWC, Zhongyang jinrong gongzuo weiyuanhui (traditional ä¸å¤®é‡'èžå·¥ä½œå§"å"¡æœƒ) (simplified ä¸å¤®é‡'èžå·¥ä½œå§"å'˜ä¼š)) was created in 1998 to supervise the Chinese financial system on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and to prevent deviations on the part of CCP-appointed managers. It was proposed by the staff of the Central Finance and Economics Leading Group (CFELG) and pursued by Zhu Rongji with the support of Jiang Zemin and Li Peng. The CFCW had political supervision and personnel authority over the People's Bank of China and state financial regulatory bodies, as well as over China’s most important national firms.
The Central Financial Work Commission consisted of several core departments: the Organization Department, the Financial Discipline Inspection Work Commission and the Department of Supervisory Board Work. It had about 200 officials and was ranked above ministerial level. Its operations were supervised by Executive Deputy Secretary Yan Haiwang, and it regularly reported directly to its head, CFCW Secretary Wen Jiabao, who concurrently served as a member of the Politburo and as vice-premier in charge of work on finance. Wen was CFCW Secretary from 1998 until the organization’s demise in 2002. Some have interpreted this to be evidence of the fact that Wen was being groomed and tested for the position of premier, since he clearly lacked the experience to run effective financial policy. The CFCW facilitated comprehensive personnel reshuffles during its existence, particularly in 1999 and 2000.
The CFWC was abolished at the 16th Party Congress in late 2002, and most of its functions were transferred to state regulatory bodies. Sebastian Heilmann argues that the CFCW was created as part of a strategy to stop the breakdown of the hierarchies in the Chinese financial industry and to restore central policy decisiveness in the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis. While this strategy was successful in establishing centralized supervision and homogenizing financial regulation, it failed to produce market-driven incentive structures for financial executives and clashed with nascent forms of corporate governance emerging in China. According to Heilmann, the dissolution of the CFCW constituted a major redefinition of Party control in economic regulation.
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The American Honda Motor Company, Inc. (sometimes abbreviated as AHM) is a North American subsidiary of the Honda Motor Company, Ltd. It was founded in 1959. The company combines product sales, service and coordinating functions of Honda in North America, and is responsible for distribution, marketing and sales of Honda and Acura brand automobiles, Honda power sports products, including motorcycles, scooters and all-terrain vehicles, and Honda power equipment products, including lawnmowers, tillers, string trimmers, snow blowers, generators, small displacement general-purpose engines and marine outboard engines.
Honda-brand automobile models include the Accord, Civic, CR-V, HR-V, Element, Clarity Fuel Cell, Fit, Insight, Odyssey, Pilot and Ridgeline. Acura-brand models are the RL, TLX, RLX, ILX, MDX, RDX, TSX, TL and ZDX. Honda claims several firsts for a Japanese car maker in the United States. The company was the first to create a subsidiary to market and sell its vehicles in the country, and the first to manufacture automobiles in North America.
The headquarters in 1959 were at 4077 West Pico Boulevard in Los Angeles. The office was moved to the nearby suburb of Gardena at 100 West Alondra in 1963. In 1990, they relocated to 1919 Torrance Boulevard in Torrance, California in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Honda headquarters have 101 acres (41Â ha) of space.
American Honda Motor Co., Inc., Honda's first overseas subsidiary, opened in Los Angeles on June 11, 1959 with capital investment of $250,000 and three employees. The creation of a subsidiary was unusual for the time, as other foreign auto companies typically relied on independent distributors.
In 1960, the first full year of operations, American Honda sold fewer than 2,000 motorcycles through three product lines: the Dream, Benly and Honda 50 (Super Cub). The following year, Honda established 500 motorcycle dealers and spent $150,000 on advertising in regions where it operated. Honda's expansion into new U.S. markets was undertaken one region at a time over a five-year period, starting on the West Coast and moving east, creating new demand for motorcycles.
Sales in the U.S. did not increase notably until 1963, when the company launched its "You meet the nicest people on a Honda" advertising campaign, the first of its scale to position motorcycles to mainstream Americans. By the end of the year, Honda had sold more than 100,000 units in the U.S., more than all other motorcycle manufacturers combined. Expansion at this time led the company to move to a new headquarters facility in Gardena, California, in September 1963, and total unit sales in 1964 represented nearly half of the U.S. motorcycle market.
Honda had an easier time expanding in the U.S. than in Japan, where Honda first began as a motorcycle manufacturer, only later entering the automobile market in competition with other established competitors including Toyota and Nissan. By 1983, Honda had 805 dealerships in the U.S. In the early 1990s, Honda sold two cars in the U.S. for every one car it sold in Japan. In 1990, American Honda took up residence in its current headquarters facility in Torrance, California. Following the death of founder Soichiro Honda in 1991, the company's global operations were re-organized, forming four regional operations including North America.
As of 2010, Honda employed more than 25,000 associates in the U.S. with a payroll of $1.6 billion. Another 140,000 workers are employed at authorized dealerships in the U.S., and tens of thousands more work for the company's 530 U.S. original equipment (OEM) suppliers.
Honda first introduced passenger cars to the North American market in 1970 with sales of the Honda N600 sedan through 32 dealers in the Western U.S.; however, sales of the vehicle and subsequent model, the Z600 coupe, only reached 20,000 units in 1972. During the 1970s energy crisis, however, lightweight, fuel-efficient cars experienced a surge in demand. The Honda Civic, introduced in 1973, became popular in the U.S., leading a significant expansion of Honda into the U.S. market.
By 1976, the company had 630 automobile dealers, and Honda followed the Civic with the Accord hatchback, which became the best-selling passenger car in the United States from 1990 to 1992. In 1977, the company partnered with J.D. Power and Associates to conduct a survey of its U.S. dealers and customers concerning their satisfaction with Honda. The initiative led to the creation of the J.D. Power and Associates Customer Satisfaction Index.
Following the Accord's success with middle-class customers, Honda became the first Japanese automaker to enter the luxury automobile market, in 1986, when it launched the Acura brand. In 1987, Acura became America's best-selling import luxury nameplate with its Integra and Legend product lines. To differentiate the brand from its Honda line, the company created a second, completely new dealer network, requiring that Acura dealerships be located a minimum of 10 miles (16Â km) from existing Honda outlets, and requiring each to invest $3 million to get started. Nearby at 19988 Van Ness Ave, Honda maintains the American Honda Museum collection, which is not open to the general public, but can be viewed by appointment for group visits.
Honda has also had several firsts in the area of advanced environmental vehicles. In 1974, the Civic CVCC was introduced as the first car to meet 1970 U.S. Clean Air Act requirements without the need for a catalytic converter and using either regular or unleaded gasoline, and was also rated #1 in fuel economy by the U.S. EPA in its first ranking of America's most fuel efficient automobiles.
In December 1999, it launched the Honda Insight, America's first gas-electric hybrid car. It later released the Civic Hybrid, the first application of hybrid technology to an existing, mass-produced automobile; and the Accord Hybrid, the U.S. market's first V-6 hybrid car. A second-generation Insight hybrid was launched in 2009, followed in 2010 by the CR-Z, a two-passenger car which was the first hybrid automobile available with a 6-speed manual transmission.
American Honda has also been active in the deployment of low-emissions vehicles in the U.S., including the first gasoline-powered vehicles to meet California's Low-Emission Vehicle (LEV), Ultra-Low Emission Vehicle (ULEV), and Super Ultra-Low Emission Vehicle (SULEV) exhaust emissions requirements.
As of 2011, Honda is the sole automaker in America marketing a mass-produced natural gas vehicle, the Civic GX, which is produced at its plant in Greensburg, Indiana. The Civic GX was recognized by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) as the "greenest vehicle" in 2010; representing the seventh consecutive year receiving this distinction.
Honda offered the first fuel cell electric vehicle to retail customers in the U.S., with its first generation FCX vehicle in December 2002. In 2008, Honda introduced an all-new FCX Clarity, a fuel cell sedan, which in 2010 was in the hands of more than two dozen retail customers based on lease sale agreements.
In January 2010, the company began operating its third version of a prototype solar-powered hydrogen refueling station for fuel cell electric vehicles on its Torrance, California campus. The station utilized Honda developed and manufactured thin-film solar cells to provide energy for the reformation of hydrogen from water via electrolysis, producing enough hydrogen to power a fuel cell electric vehicle 10,000 miles per year via a daily, eight-hour (overnight) fill.
In the 1980s, Honda established its own automobile plants in the U.S., becoming the first Japanese automaker to build cars in the U.S. Honda already had begun producing motorcycles in the U.S., in 1979, and in 1982, Honda began producing Accord sedans at its first U.S. auto plant, in Marysville, Ohio. The 1,000,000-square-foot (93,000Â m2) plant cost nearly $300 million to build. As of 2010, the plant measured 3,600,000 square feet (330,000Â m2) with cumulative capital investment of $3.8 billion.
During the next 10 years, Honda expanded its auto manufacturing presence, and as of 2010, the company was operating nine U.S. plants in six states. Collectively, these plants produce Honda and Acura automobiles, engines and transmissions, as well as Honda all-terrain vehicles and Honda power equipment products. In 2010, Honda America continued construction on two new factories in North Carolina, one for the production of the HondaJet very light jet, in Greensboro, and a second to produce its GE Honda HF120 turbofan engines, in Burlington.
Honda established U.S. research and development operations in Southern California in 1975 as Honda Research California, an arm of American Honda Motor, Co., Inc. In 1979, Honda Research of America, Inc. (HRA) was created as a subsidiary of Honda R&D Co., Ltd. As of 2010, the company operates as Honda R&D Americas, Inc. with 14 facilities in North America, including two product research and design studios for Honda and Acura, in Torrance, California, an automobile and motorcycle new-model development center in Raymond, Ohio, and a power equipment research, development and testing center in Swepsonville, North Carolina.
The company's first U.S. development was the 1989 Accord SEi. In the early to mid-1990s, HRA developed a series of derivative models including two generations of Accord Wagon (1991 and 1994), the 1998 Accord Coupe, and the 1997 Acura CL coupe (1997), based heavily on the Accord platform.
In the 2000s (decade), the company created two generations of the Honda Pilot and Acura MDX sport-utility vehicles; three generations of the Acura TL sedan; the Honda Element SUV; the 2006 Honda Ridgeline, Honda's first U.S. pickup truck; and the 2010 Acura ZDX crossover coupe. Both the 2001 MDX and 2006 Ridgeline earned recognition as North American Truck of the Year, as well as Motor Trend SUV of the Year (MDX) and Truck of the Year (Ridgeline), while the Pilot received five consecutive "5 Best Truck" awards from Car and Driver magazine (2003â€"2007).
In model year 2010, one-third of the Honda and Acura models sold in the U.S. and five of the eight light-trucks were models developed by Honda R&D Americas. In September 2010, the third generation Honda Odyssey minivan was released as a 2011 model, the most recent vehicle developed by the company exclusively in the U.S.
American Honda joined U.S. open-wheel racing competition with its entry into the Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) series in 1992, following Honda's four consecutive Formula One World Championships, from 1988 to 1991. The company, under the auspices of its U.S. racing subsidiary, Honda Performance Development (HPD), captured six Driver's Championships and four Manufacturer's titles, winning 65 of 164 races between 1992 and 2002.
HPD entered the IndyCar Series in 2003 and from 2003 to 2005, Honda teams and drivers achieved 28 victories in 49 races, including the 2004 and 2005 Indianapolis 500s. Honda won the IndyCar Series Manufacturers' Championships in 2004 and 2005, while Honda-powered drivers won the drivers' championships in the same years. In 2006, Honda became the single engine supplier to the IndyCar Series and has committed itself to the series through 2011.
Since 2007, HPD has also provided engines to prototype-class teams in American Le Mans Series sports-car racing, and these engines have scored numerous victories, beginning with an LMP2-class win in Honda's inaugural ALMS race, at Sebring in 2007. HPD was the first manufacturer to score ALMS class wins in both LMP1 and LMP2 on the same weekend with its wins at St. Petersburg in 2009. HPD went on to win LMP1 and LMP2 Manufacturers' Championships for Acura in 2009. In 2010, the company began providing engines and support for sports-car competition in both America and Europe, earning a class win in its inaugural attempt at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
During its history in the United States, Honda has had several taglines and produced a number of noteworthy advertising campaigns. Honda's first advertising slogan, promoting the Honda motorcycle to young families, was "You meet the nicest people on a Honda." The company's slogan for its automobiles in the late 1970s - 1984 was "We make it simple". By 1983, Honda's advertising budget, sponsoring National Football League games and other sporting events, rivaled the cost of building its Marysville motorcycle plant. In September 2007, the company launched its current marketing slogan, "Honda: The Power of Dreams". The early 2010s ad campaign for its automobile lineup opens up with a doorbell sound.
In 2009, American Honda released the Dream the Impossible documentary series, a collection of 5â€"8 minute web vignettes that focus on the core philosophies of Honda. Current short films include Failure: The Secret to Success, Kick Out the Ladder and Mobility 2088. They feature Honda employees as well as Danica Patrick, Christopher Guest, Ben Bova, Chee Pearlman, Joe Johnston and Orson Scott Card. The film series plays at dreams.honda.com.
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Lending Club is a US peer-to-peer lending company, headquartered in San Francisco, California. It was the first peer-to-peer lender to register its offerings as securities with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and to offer loan trading on a secondary market. Lending Club operates an online lending platform that enables borrowers to obtain a loan, and investors to purchase notes backed by payments made on loans. Lending Club is the world's largest peer-to-peer lending platform. The company claims that $15.98 billion in loans had been originated through its platform up to 31 December 2015.
Lending Club enables borrowers to create unsecured personal loans between $1,000 and $40,000. The standard loan period is three years. Investors can search and browse the loan listings on Lending Club website and select loans that they want to invest in based on the information supplied about the borrower, amount of loan, loan grade, and loan purpose. Investors make money from interest. Lending Club makes money by charging borrowers an origination fee and investors a service fee.
The company raised $1 billion in what became the largest technology IPO of 2014 in the United States. Though viewed as a pioneer in the fintech industry and one of the largest such firms, Lending Club experienced problems in early 2016, with difficulties in attracting investors, a scandal over some of the firm's loans and concerns by the board over CEO Renaud Laplanche's disclosures leading to a large drop in its share price and Laplanche's resignation.
Lending Club was initially launched on Facebook as one of Facebook's first applications. After receiving $10.26 million in a Series A funding round in August 2007, from venture capital investors Norwest Venture Partners and Canaan Partners, Lending Club was developed into a full-scale peer-to-peer lending company.
On April 8, 2008, Lending Club temporarily suspended new lender registration, canceled its affiliate program and entered a "quiet period" while it awaited approval to issue promissory notes to lenders. On June 20, 2008, Lending Club filed an S-1 statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) seeking the registration of $600 million in "Member Payment Dependent Notes" to be issued on its Web site. On August 1, 2008, Lending Club filed an amendment to its Form S-1 outlining new interest rate formulas as well as more details on a "resale trading system". On October 14, 2008, Lending Club announced its completion of the SEC registration process, posted the filed prospectus on its website, and resumed new lender registration. Notes issued on or after October 14, 2008 represent Lending Club securities rather than direct obligations of the ultimate borrower and are tradable (can be bought and sold) on the Foliofn trading platform. In March 2009, Lending Club raised $12 million in a Series B funding round led by Morgenthaler Ventures.
In April 2010, the company raised $24.5 million in a Series C funding led by Foundation Capital and joined by existing investors including Morgenthaler Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners and Canaan Partners.
In August 2011, Lending Club raised an additional $25 million in venture capital from Union Square Ventures and Thomvest, owned by the Thomson family of Thomson-Reuters. This led to Lending Club earning a $275 million post-money valuation and an increase of $80 million in valuation from the preceding year. Thomson-Reuters founder Peter J. Thomson also invested an unspecified amount of his personal fortune into Lending Club. In fall 2011, Lending Club's headquarters moved to downtown San Francisco; its earlier offices were located in Sunnyvale and Redwood City. Co-founder Soul Htite moved to China to start Dianrong.com, a peer-to-peer lending company based in Shanghai.
In 2012, the company employed about 80 people, with Renaud Laplanche continuing as the company CEO and chairman of the Board of Directors. The company averaged about $1.5 million in loan originations daily, with a total of $600 million since its founding. In April 2012, Lending Club's SEC registration from 2008 was renewed for $1 billion USD in Member Payment Dependent Notes and became effective on April 10, 2012. In June 2012, the company received $15 million in new funding from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and $2.5 million of personal investments from John J. Mack. Kleiner Perkins partner Mary Meeker joined Mack on Lending Club's board of directors. This led to a $570 million valuation of the company. In November 2012, Lending Club surpassed $1 billion in loans issued since inception and announced they were now cash flow positive.
In May 2013, Google Capital purchased a stake in Lending Club. Lending Club also began partnering with smaller banks in order to help streamline their small loans operations. In June 2013 the company partnered with Titan Bank in Texas and Congressional Bank in Maryland in order to help them facilitate loans that would have been otherwise unprofitable for them.
In March 2014, Lending Club began providing loans to small businesses. In April 2014 Lending Club acquired Springstone Financial. In May 2014 Lending Club formed a partnership with Union Bank. On August 27, 2014, Lending Club filed for an IPO with the SEC, the offering taking place in December 2014. On December 10, 2014, the company raised almost $900 million in the largest U.S. tech IPO of 2014. The stock ended the first trading day up 56%, valuing the company at $8.5bn.
Laplanche told Forbes in April 2015 that Lending Club would expand into car loans and mortgages. Lending Club also announced a partnership with Google to extend credit to smaller companies that use Google's business services. The company signed partnerships with Google, Alibaba.com, BancAlliance, and HomeAdvisor, including vetting community bank lenders for BancAlliance (a group of 200 banks), in order to send people on its platform to various community finance institutions. That year Lending Club partnered with Opportunity Fund, announced by former President Bill Clinton at the Clinton Global Initiative. The partnership intended to provide $10 million to small businesses in areas of California that are underserved by lenders. Lending Club and other small business lenders partnered with Sam’s Club to deliver its “business lending center†product. In August 2015 the company created Lending Club Open Integration (LCOI). In October, the company launched a multi-draw line of cre dit product for small businesses.
Like other peer-to-peer lenders including Prosper, Sofi and Khutzpa.com, Lending Club experienced increasing difficulty attracting investors during early 2016. This led the firm to increase the interest rate it charges borrowers on three occasions during the first months of the year. The increase in interest rates and concerns over the impact of the slowing United States economy caused a large drop in Lending Club's share price.
In April 2016 a Lending Club employee reported to Laplanche that the dates on approximately $US 3 million in the firm's loans appeared to have been altered. Lending Club's internal auditor engaged an outside firm to investigate the report. This investigation found additional problems with loans, including that $US 22 million in loans which had been sold to the Jefferies investment bank did not in fact meet the bank's investment criteria. Lending Club bought these loans back from the bank and resold them.
The New York Times reported that the investigation found that Laplanche had not disclosed to the board that he owned part of an investment fund which Lending Club was considering purchasing. The Wall Street Journal also stated that Laplanche was found to have not fully disclosed what he knew about the problematic loans.
On 6 May Lending Club's board made it clear to Laplanche that he no longer had their confidence, leading to his resignation on 9 May. The Wall Street Journal reported that Laplanche had been fired by the board. Three of the firm's other managers had also been fired or had resigned by that time as a result of the problematic loans. Lending Club's stock price fell by a further 34 percent after Laplanche's departure was announced. This placed the stock price at 70 percent of the price at the time of the firm's initial public offering. As a result of the incident, the Securities and Exchange Commission was reported to be investigating Lending Club's disclosures to investors. From May 2015 until May 2016 the share price of Lending Club had decreased by over 60%. Since Laplanche's announced exit the share price halved again.
Lending Club enables borrowers to create loan listings on its website by supplying details about themselves and the loans that they would like to request. All loans are unsecured personal loans and can be between $1,000 - $40,000. On the basis of the borrower’s credit score, credit history, desired loan amount and the borrower’s debt-to-income ratio, Lending Club determines whether the borrower is credit worthy and assigns to its approved loans a credit grade that determines payable interest rate and fees. The standard loan period is three years; a five-year period is available at a higher interest rate and additional fees. The loans can be repaid at any time without penalty.
Only investors in 39 US states are eligible to purchase notes on the Lending Club Platform. However, eligibility differs when purchasing notes on the secondary market, FolioFN. Borrowers from all but 2 US states are eligible to apply for a loan.
Investors can search and browse the loan listings on Lending Club website and select loans that they want to invest in based on the information supplied about the borrower, amount of loan, loan grade, and loan purpose. The loans can only be chosen at the interest rates assigned by Lending Club but investors can decide how much to fund each borrower, with the minimum investment of $25 per note.
Investors make money from interest. Rates vary from 6.03% to 26.06%, depending on the credit grade assigned to the loan. Lending Club makes money by charging borrowers an origination fee and investors a service fee. The size of the origination fee depends on the credit grade and ranges to be 1.1%-5.0% of the loan amount. The size of the service fee is 1% on all amounts the borrower pays. The company facilitates interest rates that are better for lenders and borrowers than they would receive from most banks. It has averaged between a six and nine percent return to investors between its founding and 2013. However, because lenders are making personal loans to individuals on the site, their gains are taxable as personal income instead of investment income. Therefore, income from Lending Club loans may be taxed at a higher rate than investments that are taxed at the capital gains rate.
After the notes are issued, Lending Club purchases the loans from the issuing bank and notes become the obligations of Lending Club, and not of the ultimate borrower: Lending Club promises to pay the noteholder monies it receives from the borrower less its service fees, while the holders of Lending Club notes have the status of unsecured creditors of Lending Club. This means that there is a risk that the investor may lose all or part of the investment if Lending Club becomes insolvent or declares bankruptcy, even if the ultimate borrower continues to pay.
The investors have the ability to put notes up for sale before the notes have reached maturity. This service is offered in a partnership with FOLIOfn Investments which charges a 1% fee on note sales, making Lending Club the first peer-to-peer lending network to offer a secondary market for peer-to-peer loans. Other peer to peer lending networks such as Khutzpa.com have subsequently also partnered with FOLIOfn Investments to offer a secondary market.
As of 2016, a high proportion of funds for Lending Club-facilitated loans came from hedge funds. During May of that year Lending Club was seeking to sell hundreds of millions of dollars worth of loans as bonds as part of a strategy to overcome difficulties in accessing sufficient funding.
When initially founded, Lending Club positioned itself as a social networking service and set up opportunities for members to identify group affinities, based on a theory that borrowers would be less likely to default to lenders with whom they had affinities and social relationships. It developed an algorithm called LendingMatch for identifying common relationship factors such as geographic location, educational and professional background, and connectedness within a given social network.
After registering with the SEC, Lending Club stopped presenting itself as a social network and maintaining that social affinity will necessarily reduce the defaulting risk. It now presents the algorithm just as a search tool for investors to find Notes they would like to purchase, using borrower and loan attributes such as the length of a loan term, target weighted average interest rate, borrower credit score, employment tenure, home ownership status, and others. To reduce default risk, Lending Club focuses on high-credit-worthy borrowers, declining approximately 90% of the loan applications it received as of 2012 and assigning higher interest rates to riskier borrowers within its credit criteria. Only borrowers with FICO score of 660 or higher can be approved for loans.
The statistics on Lending Club's website state that, as of 31 December 2015, 68.5 percent of borrowers report using their loans to refinance other loans or pay credit card debt.
As of June 30, 2015, the average Lending Club borrower has a FICO score of 699, 17.7% debt-to-income ratio (excluding mortgage), 16.2 years of credit history, $73,945 of personal income and takes out an average loan of $14,553 that s/he uses for debt consolidation or for paying off credit card debts. The investors had funded $11,217,348,156 in loans, with $1,911,759,192 coming from Q2 2015. The nominal average interest rate is 14.08%, default rate 3.39%, and an average net annualized return (net of defaults and service fees) of 8.93%. The average returns of investment for Lending Club lenders are between 5.47% and 10.22%, with 23 straight quarters of positive returns as of the second quarter of 2013.
In 2011 and 2012 the company was named to as one of the AlwaysOn Global 250. Lending Club is the winner of the World Economic Forum 2012 Technology Pioneer Award. It has been recognized by Forbes as one of America’s 20 most promising companies in 2011 and 2012, and by Fast Company as one of the ten most innovative financial companies in the world. It was named one of the Disruptor 50 by CNBC in May 2013 and 2014, as a disruptive innovator in next generation financial services. In 2014, Lending Club was recognized by Inc. as one of the 500 Fastest Growing Private Companies in America at #248. Renaud Laplanche, the company’s founder and CEO, also received The Economist Innovation Award in 2014 for the consumer products category.
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Personal finance is the financial management which an individual or a family unit performs to budget, save, and spend monetary resources over time, taking into account various financial risks and future life events. When planning personal finances, the individual would consider the suitability to his or her needs of a range of banking products (checking, savings accounts, credit cards and consumer loans) or investment private equity, (stock market, bonds, mutual funds) and insurance (life insurance, health insurance, disability insurance) products or participation and monitoring of individual- or employer-sponsored retirement plans, social security benefits, and income tax management.
Before a specialty in personal finance was developed, various disciplines which are closely related to it, such as family economics, and consumer economics were taught in various colleges as part of home economics for over 100 years. The earliest known research in personal finance was done in 1920 by Hazel Kyrk. Her dissertation at University of Chicago laid the foundation of consumer economics and family economics. Margaret Reid, a professor of Home Economics at the same university, is recognized as one of the pioneers in the study of consumer behavior and Household behavior.
In 1947, Herbert A. Simon, a Nobel laureate, suggested that a decision maker did not always make the best financial decision because of limited educational resources and personal inclinations. In 2009, Dan Ariely suggested the 2008 financial crisis showed that human beings do not always make rational financial decisions, and the market is not necessarily self-regulating and corrective of any imbalances in the economy.
Therefore, personal finance education is needed to help an individual or a family make rational financial decisions throughout their life. Before 1990, mainstream economists and business faculty paid little attention to personal finance. However, several American universities such as Brigham Young University, Iowa State University, and San Francisco State University have started to offer financial educational programmes in both undergraduate and graduate programmes in the last 30 years. These institutions have published several works in journals such as The Journal of Financial Counseling and Planning and the Journal of Personal Finance. Research into personal finance is based on several theories such as social exchange theory and andragogy (adult learning theory). Professional bodies such as American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences and American Council on Consumer Interests started to play an important role in the development of this field from the 1950s to 1970s. The establishment of the Association for Financial Counseling and Planning Education (AFCPE) in 1984 at Iowa State University and the Academy of Financial Services (AFS) in 1985 marked an important milestone in personal finance history. Attendances of the two societies mainly come from faculty and graduates from business and home economics colleges. AFCPE has since offered several certifications for professionals in this field such as Accredited Financial Counselor (AFC) and Certified Housing Counselors (CHC). Meanwhile, AFS cooperates with Certified Financial Planner (CFP Board).
As the concerns about consumers' financial capability have increased in recent years, a variety of education programmes has emerged, catering to a broad audience or to a specific group of people such as youth and women. The educational programmes are frequently known as "financial literacy". However, there was no standardised curriculum for personal finance education until after the 2008 financial crisis. The United States President’s Advisory Council on Financial Capability was set up in 2008 in order to encourage financial literacy among the American people. It also stressed the importance of developing a standard in the field of financial education.
The key component of personal finance is financial planning, which is a dynamic process that requires regular monitoring and reevaluation. In general, it involves five steps:
Typical goals that most adults and young adults have are paying off credit card/student loan/housing/car loan debt, investing for retirement, investing for college costs for children, paying medical expenses.
The limits stated by laws may be different in each countries; in any case personal finance should not disregard correct behavioral principles: people should not develop attachment to the idea of money, morally reprehensible, and, when investing, should maintain the medium-long term horizon avoiding hazards in the expected return of investment.
The six key areas of personal financial planning, as suggested by the Financial Planning Standards Board, are:
According to a survey done by Harris Interactive, 99% of the adults agreed that personal finance should be taught in schools. Financial authorities and the American federal government had offered free educational materials online to the public. However, according to a Bank of America poll, 42% of adults were discouraged while 28% of adults thought that personal finance is a difficult subject because of vast amount of information available online. As of 2015, 17 out of 50 states in the United States requires high school students to study personal finance before graduation. The effectiveness of financial education on general audience is controversial. For example, a study done by Bell, Gorin and Hogarth (2009) stated that those who undergo financial education were more likely to use a formal spending plan. Financially educated high school students are more likely to have a savings account with regular savings, fewer overdrafts and more likely to pay off their credit card balances. H owever, another study was done by Cole and Shastry (Harvard Business School, 2009) found that there were no differences in saving behaviours of people in American states with financial literacy mandate enforced and the states without a literacy mandate.
Kiplinger publishes magazines on personal finance. Several notable personal finance software tools include Controle.Finance, CountAbout, Buxfer, Geezeo, GNUCash, Mint.com, Birch Finance, Quicken, Wesabe., Moneydance and MoneyWiz.
One thing to consider with personal finance and net worth goals is depreciating assets. A depreciating asset is an asset that loses value over time or with use. A few examples would be the vehicle that a person owns, boats, and capitalized expenses. They add value to a person's life but unlike other assets they do not make money and should be a class of their own. In the business world, for tax and bookkeeping purposes, these are depreciated over time due to the fact that their useful life runs out. This is known as accumulated deprecation and the asset will eventually need to be replaced.
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