VNR.PR.A To Be Acquired At $25.00 Under Plan of Arrangement

Valener Inc. has announced that it:

and Noverco Inc. (“Noverco”), the controlling partner of Energir, L.P., announced today that they have entered into a definitive arrangement agreement (the “Arrangement Agreement”) pursuant to which Noverco will acquire indirectly all of the issued and outstanding common shares of Valener (the “Common Shares”) for $26.00 per Common Share in cash and all of the issued and outstanding Cumulative Rate Reset Preferred Shares, Series A of Valener (the “Preferred Shares”) for $25.00 per Preferred Share in cash plus accrued and unpaid dividends (the “Arrangement”).

Transaction Highlights

  • Cash consideration of $26.00 per Common Share represents a premium of approximately 30% to the closing price per Common Share on December 12, 2018 (the day prior to Noverco’s initial approach to Valener regarding a potential transaction) and approximately 10% to the all-time high closing price per Common Share of $23.67 observed on March 22, 2019.
  • Cash consideration of $25.00 per Preferred Share represents a premium of approximately 18% to the closing price per Preferred Share on December 12, 2018.
  • The acquisition of all of the outstanding Common Shares and Preferred Shares implies a total enterprise value for Valener of approximately $1.2 billion, including the assumption of existing indebtedness.
  • 100% cash consideration provides immediate liquidity and certainty of value for holders of Common Shares and holders of Preferred Shares.
  • BMO Capital Markets and TD Securities provided opinions that, subject to the assumptions, limitations and qualifications contained therein, the cash consideration to be received is fair from a financial point of view to the holders of Common Shares and the holders of Preferred Shares; further, cash consideration to be received by holders of Common Shares falls within the fair market value range of $24.00 to $28.50 per Common Share established by TD Securities as independent valuator.


Under the Arrangement, it is proposed that the Preferred Shares will also be acquired by Noverco. Pursuant to the Arrangement Agreement, holders of Preferred Shares will be asked to vote on the Arrangement as a separate class. However, completion of the Arrangement is not conditional on receipt of such approval. If the requisite approval from holders of Preferred Shares is not obtained, such Preferred Shares will be excluded from the Arrangement and remain outstanding in accordance with their terms. For the Preferred Shares to be included in the Arrangement, the resolution approving the Arrangement must be approved by holders of not less than 66 2/3% of Preferred Shares present in person or by proxy at the Special Meeting.

That’s a nice little windfall for holders of VNR.PR.A, which closed at 21.31-73 today, after trading 310 shares!

The issue commenced trading 2012-6-6 as a FixedReset, 4.35%+281, after being announced 2012-5-15. It reset to 4.62% effective 2017-10-15. I recommended against conversion and there was no conversion to FloatingResets. The issue is tracked by HIMIPref™ and has been assigned to the FixedReset subindex.

One Response to “VNR.PR.A To Be Acquired At $25.00 Under Plan of Arrangement”

  1. jimmy says:

    Hi and good day,

    Wanted to get some perspectives on PS and hedging. I believe HPR is mainly rate reset fixed disc PS. So from the chart the maturity is 14.48.

    I don’t want to hold any LT bonds w similar duration but general bond ETFs like ZAG or XBB have a duration of ~ 7 yrs.

    So was thinking a good hedge against any interest rate changes would be holding in FI say 2/3 XBB say and 1/3 HPR. Seems like you could lock in a decent 3.5 – 4% YTM.

    Do investors do this? Please advise if this sounds ok. Thanks in advance again.

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