Perpetual bond
An issue with no maturity date: the coupon runs indefinitely, and the only way to get the principal back is to sell the bond to somebody else.
How to read the number
The price rests almost entirely on the coupon and on trust in the issuer. There is no date at which the price is obliged to converge back to par.
When the metric lies
The right to redeem early normally belongs to the issuer, not the holder. Bank perpetual subordinated issues add two more rights: to skip the coupon and to write the debt down if capital adequacy falls — and neither counts as a default.
Also known as: perpetual, perp