PrefBlog

As I noted on May 4:

Fortis still hasn’t announced a reset rate for FTS.PR.H yet, despite the fact that it must have been calculated:

“Fixed Rate Calculation Date” means, for any Subsequent Fixed Rate Period, the 30th day prior to the first day of such Subsequent Fixed Rate Period.
…
“Subsequent Fixed Rate Period” means, for the initial Subsequent Fixed Rate Period, the period commencing on June 1, 2015 to, but excluding, June 1, 2020 and, for each succeeding Subsequent Fixed Rate Period, the period commencing on the first day of June immediately following the end of the immediately preceding Subsequent Fixed Rate Period to, but excluding, June 1 in the fifth year thereafter.
…
The Annual Fixed Dividend Rate applicable to a Subsequent Fixed Rate Period will be determined by the Corporation on the Fixed Rate Calculation Date. Such determination will, in the absence of manifest error, be final and binding upon the Corporation and upon all holders of the Series H First Preference Shares. The Corporation will, on the Fixed Rate Calculation Date, give written notice of the Annual Fixed Dividend Rate for the ensuing Subsequent Fixed Rate Period to the registered holders of the then outstanding Series H First Preference Shares.

I assume this figure will be released tomorrow morning:

Fortis Inc. (“Fortis” or the “Corporation”) (TSX:FTS) will release its first quarter 2015 results on Tuesday, May 5, 2015. A teleconference and webcast will be held the same day at 10:00 a.m. (Eastern). Barry Perry, President and Chief Executive Officer, Fortis, and Karl Smith, Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, Fortis, will discuss the Corporation’s first quarter 2015 results.

Analysts, members of the media and other interested parties in North America are invited to participate by calling 1.877.223.4471. International participants may participate by calling 647.788.4922. Please dial in 10 minutes prior to the start of the call. No pass code is required.

Well, nothing was announced with the 15Q1 results and the company has yet to respond to two separate eMails I’ve sent, from which I conclude that Fortis management is arrogant shit.

However, as Assiduous Reader FletcherLynn points out in a comment, they have announced third quarter dividends:

$0.15625 per share on the First Preference Shares, Series “H” of the Corporation, payable on 1 September 2015 to the Shareholders of Record at the close of business on 19 August 2015, provided, for greater certainty, that if no such Series “H” shares are outstanding on such date as a result of the exercise by Shareholders of their right to convert Series “H” shares into Cumulative Redeemable Floating Rate First Preference Shares, Series “I” of the Corporation effective 1 June 2015 (the “Conversion Right”), no such dividend shall be payable.

5.$0.13125 per share on the First Preference Shares, Series “I” of the Corporation, payable on 1 September 2015 to the Shareholders of Record at the close of business on 19 August 2015, provided, for greater certainty, that if no such Series “I” shares are issued on 1 June 2015 pursuant to the Conversion Right, no such dividend shall be payable.

So $0.15625 per quarter for FTS.PR.H is $0.625 p.a., is 2.50% of par value which, given that FTS.PR.H resets at +145, as announced in January, 2010, means that GOC-5 must have been 1.05% on the Fixed Rate Calculation Date, which was 30 days prior to June 1, or May 2, which was a Saturday, which means that May 1 must have been used, for which I used 1.04% as the closing value for GOC-5.

In addition, the $0.13125 dividend for FTS.PR.I is $0.525 p.a., is 2.10% p.a., implying a 3-Month bill yield of 0.65%, which is reasonably close to the 0.64% I used on May 1 for the closing bill yield.

It will be noted that 2.50% on FTS.PR.H represents a stunning 41% reduction in dividend from the original 4.25%.

Since Fortis management is completely shitty and their investor relations department under a vow of silence, there is no information publicly available regarding conversion notification deadlines, but a little bird has given me information that the CDS notification deadline (the deadline for your broker to notify the Canadian Depository for Securities (which holds all the shares) is 5pm on May 19. Note that this is the Tuesday following the Victoria Day long weekend; since the market will be closed May 18, you probably won’t have much luck calling your broker the day before. So, while every brokerage will set its own internal deadline, I suggest Friday, May 15 is probably the last day they will take your instruction; although sometimes you can have them act on a best-efforts basis on the last day provided you grovel in a sufficiently entertaining fashion.

I will post in the middle of next week with my final recommendation, but at this point I will tentatively suggest that FTS.PR.I will trade lower than FTS.PR.H and hence those who really want the former issue will (probably!) be better off executing a trade in the market (assuming reasonable transaction costs.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 6th, 2015 at 9:53 pm and is filed under Better Communication, Please!, Issue Comments. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.