sinking fund

Sinking fund

A fund to which money is added on a regular basis that is used to ensure investor confidence that promised payments will be made and that is used to redeem debt securities or preferred stock issues.

---

sinking fund

The assets that are set aside for the redemption of stock, the retirement of debt, or the replacement of fixed assets.

---

Sinking Fund

A fund or account into which a person or company deposits money on a regular basis in order to repay some debt or other liability that will come due in the future. For example, if one has a loan with a balloon maturity of seven years, one may put money into a sinking fund for seven years in order to be ready to pay off the principal when it comes due. Some bonds have sinking fund provisions, requiring the issuer to put money aside to repay bondholders at maturity.

---

Sinking fund. To ensure there's money on hand to redeem a bond or preferred stock issue, a corporation may establish a separate custodial account, called a sinking fund, to which it adds money on a regular basis.

Or the corporation may be required to establish such a fund to fulfill the terms of its issue. The existence of the fund allows the corporation to present its investments as safer than those issued by a corporation without comparable assets.

However, sinking fund assets may be used to call bonds before they mature, reducing the interest the bondholders expected to receive.

---

sinking fund

Money set aside in a special account to which regular contributions are made by way of additional money and/or interest on the money,with the plans that by a specified date the fund will be sufficient for a particular purpose.Prospective homeowners may set up a sinking fund for a house down payment,and companies usually establish sinking funds to pay off bonds.