December 14, 2012

Northern Securities is under the gun:

Following an expedited hearing held on December 14, 2012, in Toronto, Ontario with notice to Northern Securities Inc. (NSI) and with NSI’s consent, a Hearing Panel of the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC) imposed the following terms and conditions on NSI’s continued approval and Membership:

1. By no later than the close of business on December 31, 2012, NSI must have a fully executed agreement with one or more Dealer Members to assign its client accounts, by bulk transfer, that would result in the transfer of all of NSI’s client accounts from NSI’s carrying broker, Penson Financial Services Canada (“Penson”) by the close of business on January 15, 2013.

2. If NSI does not have a fully executed agreement within the time prescribed in paragraph 1, NSI agrees to assign all of its client accounts to Penson forthwith.

3. As of the close of business on December 31, 2012, as a condition of its continuing approval and Membership, NSI shall (a) cease any sales and advisory activity for retail or institutional customers; and (b) restrict its activities to mergers and acquisitions, research and corporate finance.

4. Notwithstanding paragraph 3, NSI may seek approval from IIROC for any other registrable activities and must seek approval for any change in business set out in paragraph 3.

Intact Financial, proud issuer of IFC.PR.A and IFC.PR.C, has been confirmed by DBRS:

DBRS Limited (DBRS) has today confirmed Intact Financial Corporation’s (Intact or the Company) Issuer Rating at A (low), its Senior Unsecured Debt at A (low) and its Non-Cumulative Preferred Shares at Pfd-2 (low). The trends are Stable. The Company’s operating subsidiaries continue to be among the strongest performers in the Canadian property and casualty (P&C) insurance industry in terms of underwriting profit and overall profitability.

With the acquisition of AXA and Jevco, the Company has increased its financial leverage ratio to 27.8%, which is above the top end of our comfort zone for this particular rating category. (While the Company restricts its leverage target to a debt ratio of 20%, the DBRS methodology uses a total debt ratio that includes both debt and preferred shares with a 15% to 25% range for the “A” category). However, the successful integration of the acquired operations, the full realization of synergies and the Company’s ability to pay down debt according to its longer-term funding plan provides continuing confidence in the Company’s financial management. Fixed charge coverage ratios at just below ten times in the most recent nine month period are well above the threshold for the rating category, reflecting the Company’s strong profitability. The Company has indicated that it will retain more of this internally generated capital and use some of it to pay down some of the acquisition debt to help reduce financial leverage. Should Intact not succeed in reducing its financial leverage over the next few years to levels acceptable for an “A”-rated company in this industry, there would be downward pressure on the Company’s ratings.

FBS.PR.C has been confirmed by DBRS at Pfd-2(low):

DBRS has today confirmed the rating of the Class C Preferred Shares, Series 1 (the Preferred Shares) issued by 5Banc Split Inc. (the Company) at Pfd-2 (low). Approximately 2.58 million Preferred Shares were issued at $10 each on December 15, 2011, following the redemption of the Class B Preferred Shares in accordance with their original terms as part of a share capital reorganization. The final redemption date for the Preferred Shares is December 15, 2016.

The downside protection available to holders of the Preferred Shares as of December 6, 2012, is 61.5%. The confirmation of the rating of the Preferred Shares is based primarily on the level of downside protection and dividend coverage available, as well as on the high credit quality and consistency of dividend distributions on the underlying names in the Portfolio.

The main constraints to the rating are the following:

(1) The downside protection provided to holders of the Preferred Shares is dependent on the value of the shares in the Portfolio.
(2) Volatility of price and changes in the dividend policies of the Canadian banks may result in significant reductions in downside protection from time to time.
(3) The concentration of the entire Portfolio is in the Canadian financial services industry.

There were uneven gains in the Canadian preferred share market today, with PerpetualPremiums gaining 1bp, FixedResets winning 20bp and DeemedRetractibles up 3bp. Volatility was minimal. Volume was below average.

HIMIPref™ Preferred Indices
These values reflect the December 2008 revision of the HIMIPref™ Indices

Values are provisional and are finalized monthly
Index Mean
Current
Yield
(at bid)
Median
YTW
Median
Average
Trading
Value
Median
Mod Dur
(YTW)
Issues Day’s Perf. Index Value
Ratchet 0.00 % 0.00 % 0 0.00 0 0.0937 % 2,475.8
FixedFloater 4.13 % 3.48 % 30,257 18.30 1 -0.2169 % 3,895.7
Floater 2.81 % 3.00 % 61,129 19.75 4 0.0937 % 2,673.2
OpRet 4.64 % 2.25 % 51,022 0.51 4 0.0000 % 2,591.1
SplitShare 4.66 % 4.72 % 61,879 4.41 2 -0.3636 % 2,856.2
Interest-Bearing 0.00 % 0.00 % 0 0.00 0 0.0000 % 2,369.3
Perpetual-Premium 5.25 % 1.58 % 73,260 0.20 30 0.0064 % 2,322.7
Perpetual-Discount 4.85 % 4.87 % 101,087 15.62 4 0.0508 % 2,635.9
FixedReset 4.93 % 3.02 % 230,909 4.33 77 0.1971 % 2,453.6
Deemed-Retractible 4.91 % 2.25 % 115,335 0.43 46 0.0279 % 2,411.6
Performance Highlights
Issue Index Change Notes
TD.PR.E FixedReset 4.47 % Not a “real” move – the market maker simply woke up after yesterday‘s nap.
YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Call
Maturity Date : 2014-04-30
Maturity Price : 25.00
Evaluated at bid price : 26.65
Bid-YTW : 1.92 %
Volume Highlights
Issue Index Shares
Traded
Notes
POW.PR.D Perpetual-Premium 156,200 TD crossed 150,000 at 25.25.
YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Call
Maturity Date : 2014-10-31
Maturity Price : 25.00
Evaluated at bid price : 25.27
Bid-YTW : 4.89 %
BAM.PR.B Floater 120,781 National crossed 115,000 at 17.50.
YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Limit Maturity
Maturity Date : 2042-12-14
Maturity Price : 17.45
Evaluated at bid price : 17.45
Bid-YTW : 3.00 %
BAM.PR.C Floater 117,007 National crossed 115,000 at 17.50.
YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Limit Maturity
Maturity Date : 2042-12-14
Maturity Price : 17.48
Evaluated at bid price : 17.48
Bid-YTW : 3.00 %
BNS.PR.R FixedReset 77,125 National crossed blocks of 19,300 and 49,800, both at 25.15.
YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Hard Maturity
Maturity Date : 2022-01-31
Maturity Price : 25.00
Evaluated at bid price : 25.19
Bid-YTW : 3.44 %
RY.PR.H Deemed-Retractible 69,300 Scotia crossed 40,000 at 26.65; TD crossed 25,000 at the same price.
YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Call
Maturity Date : 2013-05-24
Maturity Price : 26.00
Evaluated at bid price : 26.66
Bid-YTW : 0.32 %
CM.PR.K FixedReset 59,693 Scotia crossed 50,000 at 26.42.
YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Call
Maturity Date : 2014-07-31
Maturity Price : 25.00
Evaluated at bid price : 26.41
Bid-YTW : 2.24 %
There were 26 other index-included issues trading in excess of 10,000 shares.
Wide Spread Highlights
Issue Index Quote Data and Yield Notes
BNS.PR.M Deemed-Retractible Quote: 26.29 – 26.94
Spot Rate : 0.6500
Average : 0.3739

YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Call
Maturity Date : 2013-01-13
Maturity Price : 26.00
Evaluated at bid price : 26.29
Bid-YTW : -2.86 %

BNA.PR.C SplitShare Quote: 24.12 – 24.39
Spot Rate : 0.2700
Average : 0.1748

YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Hard Maturity
Maturity Date : 2019-01-10
Maturity Price : 25.00
Evaluated at bid price : 24.12
Bid-YTW : 5.08 %

PWF.PR.M FixedReset Quote: 26.00 – 26.36
Spot Rate : 0.3600
Average : 0.2746

YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Call
Maturity Date : 2014-01-31
Maturity Price : 25.00
Evaluated at bid price : 26.00
Bid-YTW : 3.04 %

IGM.PR.B Perpetual-Premium Quote: 26.40 – 26.75
Spot Rate : 0.3500
Average : 0.2759

YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Call
Maturity Date : 2018-12-31
Maturity Price : 25.00
Evaluated at bid price : 26.40
Bid-YTW : 4.99 %

SLF.PR.E Deemed-Retractible Quote: 24.01 – 24.22
Spot Rate : 0.2100
Average : 0.1433

YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Hard Maturity
Maturity Date : 2022-01-31
Maturity Price : 25.00
Evaluated at bid price : 24.01
Bid-YTW : 5.05 %

BMO.PR.H Deemed-Retractible Quote: 25.31 – 25.49
Spot Rate : 0.1800
Average : 0.1171

YTW SCENARIO
Maturity Type : Call
Maturity Date : 2013-02-25
Maturity Price : 25.00
Evaluated at bid price : 25.31
Bid-YTW : 0.47 %

One Response to “December 14, 2012”

  1. […] fall of Penson had implications for Northern Securities’ retail operations as discussed on December 14: A subsidiary of Northern Financial Corp. is assigning client accounts to two unnamed brokerage […]

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.