Fisher Black's dream

Perry Merhling had an interesting quote from Fischer Black:

Thus a long term corporate bond could actually be sold to three separate persons. One would supply the money for the bond; one would bear the interest rate risk; and one would bear the risk of default. The last two would not have to put up any capital for the bonds, although they might have to post some sort of collateral

In the comments I pointed out that a fourth person can be added to the list - someone who bears the liquidity risk of that corporate bond in the secondary market. This would amount to a liquidity option. Essentially, the bearer of liquidity risk would allow the bond owner to sell that bond at some preset level in the bid-ask spread. For instance, the option could allow the bond owner to immediately sell their entire bond holdings at the upper end of the spread, or at the ask price. Normally, sellers can only sell quickly if they accept a price near the bid price, or lower end of the bid-ask spread. When illiquidity strikes and spreads widen, usually because buyers depart and there are less bids, an option to sell at the ask price rather than the bid price increases in value.

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