Big 8 Split Inc. has announced:
that its Board of Directors has approved a proposal to reorganize the Company. The reorganization will permit holders of Class A Capital Shares to extend their investment in the Company beyond the redemption date of December 15, 2008 for up to an additional 5 years. The Class A Preferred Shares will be redeemed on the same terms originally contemplated in their share provisions.
Holders of Class A Capital Shares who do not wish to extend their investment and all holders of Class A Preferred Shares will have their shares redeemed on December 15, 2008. The Board has retained TD Securities Inc. to provide financial advice to the Company in this regard.
The reorganization will involve (i) the extension of the originally scheduled redemption date, (ii) a special retraction right to enable holders of Class A Capital Shares to retract their shares as originally contemplated should they not wish to extend their investment and (iii) the creation of new preferred shares to be known as the Class B Preferred Shares, Series 1 in order to provide continuing leverage for the Class A Capital Shares. The reorganization will be subject to receipt of all necessary regulatory approvals.
A special meeting of holders of Class A Capital Shares has been called and will be held on November 21, 2008 to consider and vote upon the reorganization. Details of the proposed reorganization will be outlined in an information circular to be prepared and delivered to holders of Class A Capital Shares in connection with the special meeting.
Big 8 Split was established to generate dividend income for the Preferred Shares while providing holders of the Capital Shares with a leveraged opportunity to participate in capital appreciation from a portfolio of common shares of Bank of Montreal, The Bank of Nova Scotia, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Royal Bank of Canada, The Toronto-Dominion Bank, Great-West Lifeco Inc., Manulife Financial Corporation, and Sun Life Financial Inc. Information concerning Big 8 Split Inc. is available on our website at www.tdsponsoredcompanies.com.
The Capital Shares and Preferred Shares of Big 8 Split are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange
under the symbols BIG.A and BIG.pr.A respectively.
The preliminary prospectus on SEDAR has all the interesting parts – like dividend rate – left blank.
The NAVPU has declined from $72.98 on 2008-1-3 to $41.80 on 2008-11-13, which means the capital unit NAV has gone from $47.98 to $16.80. Ouch! About 4.3% of outstanding units were retracted in 2007 … they were the lucky ones!
BIG.PR.A has not been tracked by HIMIPref™.
Update, 2008-11-24: Reorganization approved.
[…] will not be tracked by HIMIPref™ due to the issue’s small size. The issuance and related redemption of BIG.PR.A has been previously discussed on […]