PrefBlog

Canoe EIT Income Fund has announced:

that it has closed the previously announced offering of 4.80% Cumulative Redeemable Series 1 Preferred Units (the “Series 1 Preferred Units”). The Series 1 Preferred Units were offered to the public through a syndicate of underwriters led by Scotiabank and RBC Capital Markets which also included BMO Capital Markets, CIBC Capital Markets, National Bank Financial Inc., TD Securities Inc., Canaccord Genuity Corp., Industrial Alliance Securities Inc. and Manulife Securities Incorporated.

The Fund issued 4,900,000 Series 1 Preferred Units at a price of $25.00 per Series 1 Preferred Unit for gross proceeds of $122,500,000. The Fund has also granted the underwriters an option, exercisable at the offering price for a period of 30 days from today’s date, to purchase up to an additional 735,000 Series 1 Preferred Units to cover over-allotments, if any. Holders of the Series 1 Preferred Units will be entitled to fixed cumulative preferential cash distributions of $1.20 per Series 1 Preferred Unit per annum, as and when declared, which will accrue from the date of issue and will be payable quarterly on the 15th day of March, June, September and December in each year with the initial distribution, if declared, payable on June 15, 2017. The Series 1 Preferred Units are listed for trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol EIT.PR.A.

The proceeds from the Offering will be invested by the Fund in accordance with its investment objectives and strategies. The Offering is expected to ensure the sustainability of the Fund by increasing the earning capacity of the units. The Series 1 Preferred Units are rated Pfd – 2 (high) by Dominion Bond Rating Service Limited.

The Fund’s regular monthly distribution of $0.10 per unit for unitholders of EIT.UN units remains unchanged. The Fund has maintained the $0.10 per unit monthly distribution since August 2009, through varying market conditions.

The Fund’s annual voluntary redemption feature for unitholders of EIT.UN units remains unchanged. Once a date has been set for the 2017 annual redemption, the Fund will issue a news release with the details.

EIT.PR.A is a 4.80% Seven Year Retractible that was announced 2017-3-8 after marketting began 2017-2-22. It will be tracked by HIMIPref™ and has been assigned to the Split Share subindex.

Note that according to the prospectus, to which I am not permitted to link because Canadian Securities Administrators take the view that you are all stupid, filthy, ignorant investor scum and do not deserve the slightest consideration whatsoever. You will have to go to SEDAR and look for “Canoe EIT Income Fund Mar 8 2017 14:21:01 ET Final short form prospectus – English PDF 266 K”.

Distributions in any given period may consist of net income, net capital gains and/or returns of capital.

The issue traded 213,320 shares today in a range of 24.90-25 before closing at 25.25-30, 5×10. Vital statistics are:

EIT.PR.A is rated Pfd-2(high) by DBRS:

DBRS Limited (DBRS) has today finalized its provisional rating of Pfd-2 (high) on the Cumulative Redeemable Series 1 Preferred Units (the Series 1 Preferred Units) issued by Canoe EIT Income Fund (the Fund).

The Fund is a closed-end investment trust focused on a broad range of income-producing investments in various industries and geographic regions. The Fund can issue an unlimited number of capital units (the Units) and can also issue in-series Preferred Units up to a maximum aggregate amount equal to 25% of the Fund’s total assets after giving effect to the proposed offering of the Preferred Units. The Series 1 Preferred Units were issued at a price of $25.00 per Series 1 Preferred Unit. The Series 1 Preferred Units are retractable for cash at the option of the holder on or after March 15, 2024.

The Fund has a credit facility (the Credit Facility) with a Tier 1 Canadian bank, but is restricted by its Declaration of Trust from borrowing in excess of 20% of the Fund’s total assets at the time of borrowing, after giving effect to the borrowing. The Credit Facility is secured by all of the Fund’s present and after-acquired personal property, undertaking and assets as well as all proceeds thereof. Distributions on the Series 1 Preferred Units are restricted if a default or event of default occurs under the Credit Facility or if the outstanding amount borrowed exceeds the available credit at any time.

Net proceeds from the offering of the Series 1 Preferred Units, after deducting the fees and expenses incurred as a result of the offering, are expected to be invested by the Fund to grow its portfolio in accordance with its investment objectives and investment strategies.

The Series 1 Preferred Unit holders will be entitled to receive quarterly cumulative preferential cash distributions of $0.30 (or $1.20 annually), representing a 4.80% per annum return on the issue price of $25.00. The holders of the Units currently receive targeted monthly cash distributions amounting to $1.20 per annum. In addition, up to 10% of the aggregate outstanding Units may be redeemed at the option of the Unit holders each calendar year on a date determined by the Fund.

The risks relating to the Unit distributions and redemptions are partially mitigated by restrictions on distributions, purchases and redemptions in the Fund’s Declaration of Trust as the Fund cannot pay or declare payable any distribution amount to the Unitholders (other than amounts that are paid solely through the issuance of additional Units, which would not affect the downside protection, or annual redemption amounts at the option of the holders of Units as described above), purchase for cancellation or otherwise redeem the Units, unless and until the distribution entitlements of the Series 1 Preferred Units have been paid in full or moneys are set aside for such payment.

The Fund’s portfolio initially provides downside protection of approximately 84% to holders of the Series 1 Preferred Unit and an asset coverage of approximately 10.0 times (x). The Series 1 Preferred Unit distributions are expected to be mainly funded through income received from the income-generating securities in the Portfolio. The Fund may also engage in writing covered call options to supplement the income. The Series 1 Preferred Units dividend coverage is expected to be approximately 1.7x.

The Pfd-2 (high) rating assigned by DBRS is based on the level of downside protection available to holders of the Series 1 Preferred Units, the distribution coverage ratio and the diversification of the Fund’s portfolio. In addition, DBRS has taken into account the potential grind on the portfolio arising from (1) distributions to the Units and redemption rights, (2) potential foreign-exchange risk because some investments in foreign currencies are not hedged and (3) the fact that lenders under the Credit Facility have priority over the Fund’s assets up to the amount of credit outstanding. Considering the Credit Facility amount compared with the current total assets, DBRS does not view the latter risk to be significant.

Update, 2017-3-22: Canoe Financial has announced:

Canoe EIT Income Fund (the “Fund”) (TSX – EIT.UN, EIT.PR.A) announced today that the syndicate of underwriters for the offering (the “Offering”) of 4.80% Cumulative Redeemable Series 1 Preferred Units (the “Series 1 Preferred Units”) of the Fund has fully exercised its over-allotment option. As a result of the exercise of the over-allotment option, the Fund raised additional gross proceeds of $18,375,000 from the sale of 735,000 Series 1 Preferred Units. Inclusive of the over-allotment option, the Fund raised gross proceeds of $140,875,000 from the sale of 5,635,000 Series 1 Preferred Units. The Series 1 Preferred Units are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol EIT.PR.A.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 14th, 2017 at 9:17 pm and is filed under 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.