PrefBlog

The US gift to the farmers’ lobbyists will continue:

President Barack Obama’s administration rejected a request from the governors of eight U.S. states to waive requirements for blending corn-based ethanol into gasoline, said a person familiar with the decision.
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This year’s U.S. corn harvest is forecast at 10.725 billion bushels, the smallest in six years because of the drought. About 4.5 billion bushels will be used to make ethanol in the year starting Sept. 1, or about 42 percent of the 2012 crop, the USDA estimated on Nov. 9.

If it was about being nice little goody-greens, they’d make the ethanol from Brazilian sugar beets or sugar cane. But it has nothing to do with the environment.

Canaccord Financial, proud issuer of CF.PR.A and CF.PR.C, was confirmed at Pfd-3(low), Trend Negative, by DBRS:

DBRS has today confirmed its rating of the Preferred Shares of Canaccord Financial Inc. (Canaccord or the Company) at Pfd-3 (low). The Negative trend, which was assigned in December 2011 following the announcement of the Company’s $400 million acquisition of Collins Stewart Hawkpoint plc (CSHP), is being maintained. Initially, the Negative trend was assigned to reflect the relatively large size of the Collins Stewart acquisition, financing uncertainty and integration risk, given the uncertain ambient market environment. The Company’s second issue of preferred shares in April 2012 ($100 million), combined with some excess working capital, allowed the Company to repay the $150 million short-term credit facility drawn to fund part of the $244 million cash portion of the acquisition cost, which addresses most of the financing concern. The integration appears to be proceeding smoothly, notwithstanding over $35 million in associated restructuring cost provisions, mitigated by good potential for realizing expense and revenue synergies in the Company’s U.K. and U.S. operations. The weak market environment nevertheless continues to be a source of concern for DBRS.
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The nature of the Company’s products and services, as well as the natural resource orientation of its client base, expose it to a great deal of revenue volatility related to economic and market cycles, including both capital and commodity markets. Normally, the adverse impact of such market exposures and associated revenue volatility on earnings and cash flow would be mitigated by the Company’s flexible cost base and the absence of operating leverage. Even though the Company has made strategic investments to diversify away from these market exposures while actively addressing its cost base, the current market environment is especially unfavourable for the broker-dealer industry, depressing earnings and cash flow below what DBRS believes should be sustainable in the long run. While DBRS applauds the strategic and expense initiatives taken by the Company to date, the level of uncertainty surrounding the Company’s industry makes it inappropriate to remove the Negative rating trend at this time.

HSBC Bank Canada, proud issuer of HSB.PR.C, HSB.PR.D and HSB.PR.E was confirmed at Pfd-2(high) [Review Negative] by DBRS:

DBRS has today confirmed the ratings of HSBC Bank Canada (HSBC or the Bank) and related entities, including the Bank’s Long-Term Deposits and Senior Debt rating at AA and its Short-Term Instruments rating at R-1 (high). All ratings remain Under Review with Negative Implications.

On July 20, 2012, DBRS placed all the ratings of HSBC Bank Canada and related entities Under Review with Negative Implications following the rating action of Under Review with Negative Implications on the ratings of HSBC Holdings plc (the Parent). Under DBRS’s global bank rating methodology, HSBC Bank Canada has been assigned a support assessment of SA1, reflecting expected timely support from the Parent, of which HSBC Bank Canada’s ratings are largely based on. DBRS anticipates resolving the ratings review on HSBC Bank Canada once the review has been completed for HSBC Holdings plc.

Shaw Communications, proud issuer of SJR.PR.A, was confirmed at Pfd-3 by DBRS:

DBRS has today confirmed Shaw Communications Inc.’s (Shaw or the Company) Issuer Rating at BBB, Senior Notes rating at BBB, and Preferred Shares rating at Pfd-3; the trends remain Stable. The confirmation reflects the view that the Company’s earnings profile remains reasonable for its current rating category, based on its incumbent position in Western Canada, large subscriber base and industry-leading operating margins, while acknowledging that intensifying competition is placing increasing pressure on the Company’s cable television and broadband subscriber base. DBRS notes that slowing top-line growth in recent periods is also somewhat offset by the fact that key credit metrics remain reasonable for the current rating category.

Shaw’s revenue growth rate decelerated to 5.4% in F2012 versus almost 10% in prior years as Shaw’s broadband Internet and home phone subscriber growth was partially offset by declines in cable TV subscribers. The Company’s TV segment lost 70,000 basic cable subscribers (predominantly to TELUS Corporation) over the period while Internet and home phone subscriber growth decelerated compared to prior years. That said, consolidated operating margins remained relatively stable at 43%, resulting in EBITDA growth of 4% to $2.1 billion. Shaw’s financial profile remains relatively stable and consistent with the current rating category as operating income/cash flow generation and debt levels have remained fairly steady. Gross debt-to-EBITDA decreased slightly to 2.47 times (x) for F2012 from 2.56x the prior year.

It was a mixed day for the Canadian preferred share market, with PerpetualPremiums off 1bp, FixedResets gaining 6bp and DeemedRetractibles flat. Volatility was low. Volume was very low – have we hit the Christmas slump yet?

It will be interesting to learn all the unintended consequences:

As France begins collecting its financial-transactions tax this month, it is becoming evident that President Francois Hollande’s levy is hitting all but the people it was aimed at: speculators.

Hollande, who called finance his “main adversary” during his election campaign, pushed through in August a 0.2 percent transaction tax on share purchases, making France the first and only country so far in Europe to have such a levy. Many investors have been escaping the tax using so-called contracts for difference, or CFDs, offered by prime brokers that let them bet on a stock’s gain or loss without owning the shares.

“The target was supposed to be finance with a capital F, which is sort of a black box,” said Jacques Porta, who helps manage $627 million at Ofi Patrimoine in Paris. “Instead, we are punishing small investors who aren’t to blame and already are frightened off by losses in the market.”

How about an update on bank bonds?

Case in point: a new report from Moody’s Investors Service found that bank debt issues around the world have been chopped in half since the onset of the financial crisis. After peaking at roughly $2.4-trillion (U.S.) a quarter in 2007, banks globally are now issuing unsecured debt that amounts to just half that.

First it was North American issues – chiefly the U.S. – that plummeted in 2008 and 2009, and more recently it’s been European banks, particularly those on the periphery of the euro zone. The only area of the world seeing an uptick in issuance right now is Asia, where long-term bank debt issues are up 6 per cent over the 12 months ended Sept. 30. (Canada on its own is also faring well.)

The drop-off has a few implications. Chiefly, it affects how much money the banks can lend. For that reason, it’s sparked a push for deposits as a cheap source of funds.
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The slowdown also gives the banks an incentive to ramp up their covered bond offerings.
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To understand just how much covered bond spreads have tightened, making them more favourable, in 2009 they blew out to roughly 240 basis points in the U.K. Now they’re back to about 60 basis points.

With the election out of the way, the Keystone pipeline of TCA and TRP is in the news again:

Environmentalists are reviving their noisy 2011 anti-pipeline campaign, with a demonstration scheduled for Sunday outside the White House, and they have pointed to the decision on the Keystone pipeline as a key test of the President’s resolve to battle climate change during his second term. Former U.S. vice-president Al Gore this week urged Mr. Obama to kill the Keystone XL project.
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On Thursday, TransCanada got a boost when the Building & Construction Trades and the American Petroleum Institute each called on Mr. Obama to move quickly to approve the controversial project, which will carry 1.1-million barrels per day of oil-sands bitumen from Alberta and lighter oil from North Dakota’s Bakken fields to the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Julie Dickson gave a speech titled Substance over Form at the 2012 Life Insurance Invitational Forum, but there wasn’t much in it:

Just as many now recognize that it was a mistake to believe that low rates would be a short-term, transitory phenomenon, it would also be a mistake to assume that we could never again be faced with very high interest rates.

Insurers will remember what happened in the 1980s, when rates spiked to historically high levels and the insurers’ business model came under pressure, as policyholders found life policies with savings features unattractive and decided to turn to banks for savings products. (You may recall that this led to the expression, “Buy term and invest the rest.”)
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Let me switch to banking for a minute to expand on this point. Lately, I have seen a number of articles suggesting that Basel III is too complex and that Basel III capital calculations cannot be relied upon. I think such thinking is misguided. OSFI’s view is that Basel III can be relied upon – if proper risk management and governance at financial institutions is in place, and if supervisors are active and diligent in their work of overseeing Basel III implementation. Combined with a leverage ratio, Basel III, properly implemented, will fundamentally enhance financial stability. It might be better for people to focus more on the quality of supervision, and focus less on Basel III complexity.

As we point out in the Life Insurance Regulatory Framework, OSFI expects to consult significantly with industry over the coming years so that major regulatory capital changes can be implemented by 2015. Risk management will form a big part of that consultation.

Naturally, future employment prospects of OSFI personnel are not forgotten:

OSFI recognizes that small- to medium-sized companies, or those of less complexity with predictable and diversifiable risk, may not be able to afford a dedicated CRO to lead the risk management function. In these cases, we accept that the individuals responsible for risk management can also be performing other functions. But even in small, less complex businesses, we want to see a risk management process on which the board of directors, the CEO, senior management team, and policyholders can rely. As an example, we would want the board to meet in camera with the person who owns the risk management role as part of his or her responsibilities.

It was another mixed day for the Canadian preferred share market, with PerpetualPremiums gaining 2bp, FixedResets off 2bp and DeemedRetractibles down 5bp. Volatility was low. Volume was low.

There’s an interesting straw in the wind for junk bonds:

Investors yanked a record volume of cash from BlackRock Inc.’s exchange-traded fund that buys junk bonds as the notes lose value for the first month since May.

The $16.3 billion fund reported an outflow of 2.4 million shares yesterday, equal to about $218.9 million, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s the biggest daily withdrawal in the five-year history of the iShares iBoxx High Yield Corporate Bond Fund, the largest of its kind.

The five largest junk-bond ETFs, which allow investors to speculate on the securities without actually owning them, have lost $1.97 billion of assets since Sept. 20 as investors wager that a four-year rally in the debt is running out of steam. High-yield bonds in the U.S. are losing 0.14 percent this month after posting 12.9 percent returns this year through October, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch index data.

Regulation is wonderful:

Since 1998, ABS [the non-profit American Bureau of Shipping] has hired four former Coast Guard admirals as executives. They include retired Admiral Robert Kramek, who led the Coast Guard as commandant from 1994 to 1998. It was Kramek who signed an agreement with ABS in 1995 that expanded the nonprofit’s powers to inspect independently owned ships on the Coast Guard’s behalf.

In June 1998, three years after Kramek signed that inspection agreement, ABS hired him as president of its Americas division.

Jack Devanney, a retired executive of companies that own ships that used ABS services, says this revolving door is bad for ship safety.

“When you give Kramek a nice job, you’re sending a message to all the Coast Guard guys that they’ve got a second career at ABS,” says Devanney, who has a Ph.D. in management science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “If you rock the boat, that opportunity’s not going to be available to you.”

S&P has released a fascinating report titled A Tale Of Two Countries: U.S. And Canadian Banks’ Contrasting Profitability Dynamics:

Profit dynamics for a company or an industry are highly sensitive to shifting operating and regulatory conditions and, as a result, are likely to change over time. Profits are important because they can be a significant generator of capital–for the companies that retain them in a meaningful amount. A careful review of bank profitability in both the U.S. and Canada indicates that Canadian banks have been more profitable than their U.S. counterparts in recent years. This gap has widened in the postcrisis years. This is partly because of Canadian banks’ higher leverage that largely arises from structural differences. We also note that the leverage ratio gap between the U.S. and Canada is sensitive to definition. Alternative definitions of leverage ratio for U.S. banks, for example using Standard & Poor’s adjusted common equity to adjusted assets, also show that U.S. banks have lower leverage than Canadian banks, but the gap is much smaller.
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As for Canada, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) will issue a new Basel III capital guideline before the end of 2012–for implementation in the first fiscal quarter of 2013. Of the 29 G-SIBs that the Financial Stability Board (FSB) identified in November 2011, none were Canadian banks. However, there are plans to identify domestic systemically important banks (D-SIBs) and recommend that a capital surcharge be applied to them. But Canadian banking regulators have not offered any detailed views on this yet. Therefore, we anticipate Canadian banks, on average, will continue to have higher leverage than U.S. banks, particularly the largest and most complex. We believe that at least part of the tolerance for higher leverage may be due to the accumulation of relatively low-risk weighted assets, like government-insured mortgages

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It was another mixed day for the Canadian preferred share market, with PerpetualPremiums up 3bp, FixedResets gaining 2bp and DeemedRetractibles off 1bp. Volatility was non-existent. Volume was low.

PerpetualDiscounts now yield 4.91%, equivalent to 6.38% interest at the standard equivalency factor of 1.3x. Long corporates now yield about 4.2%, so the pre-tax interest-equivalent spread (in this context, the “Seniority Spread”) is now about 220bp, a slight (and perhaps spurious) increase from the 215bp reported November 7.

Today’s inspiring photograph has been taken from the website of a company owned by a distant relative.

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It was another mixed day for the Canadian preferred share market, with PerpetualPremiums gaining 1bp, FixedResets off 5bp and DeemedRetractibles gaining 3bp. Volatility was low. Volume was relatively heavy, with quite a few issues breaking the 100,000 barrier as the RBC desk did land-office business.