PrefBlog

TC Energy Corporation has announced:

that 42,200 of its 14,577,184 fixed rate Cumulative Redeemable First Preferred Shares, Series 1 (Series 1 Shares) have been elected for conversion on Dec. 31, 2024, on a one-for-one basis, into floating rate Cumulative Redeemable First Preferred Shares, Series 2 (Series 2 Shares); and 3,889,020 of its 7,422,816 Series 2 Shares have been elected for conversion, on a one-for-one basis, into Series 1 Shares.

As a result of the conversions, TC Energy will have 18,424,004 Series 1 Shares and 3,575,996 Series 2 Shares issued and outstanding. The Series 1 Shares and Series 2 Shares will continue to be listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) under the symbols TRP.PR.A and TRP.PR.F, respectively.

The Series 1 Shares will pay on a quarterly basis for the five-year period beginning on Dec. 31, 2024, as and when declared by the Board of Directors of TC Energy, a fixed dividend at an annualized rate of 4.939 per cent.

The Series 2 Shares will pay a floating rate quarterly dividend for the five-year period beginning on Dec. 31, 2024, as and when declared by the Board of Directors of TC Energy. The dividend rate for the Series 2 Shares for the first quarterly floating rate period commencing Dec. 31, 2024 to but excluding Mar. 31, 2025 is 5.401 per cent and will be reset every quarter.

Holders of Series 1 Shares and Series 2 Shares will have the opportunity to convert their shares again on Dec. 31, 2029 and in every fifth year thereafter as long as the shares remain outstanding. For more information on the terms of, and risks associated with an investment in the Series 1 Shares and the Series 2 Shares, please see the prospectus supplement dated Sept. 22, 2009 which is available on sedarplus.ca or on our website.

TRP.PR.A commenced trading 2009-9-30 after being announced 2009-9-22. It commenced life as a FixedReset, 4.60%+192, that reset to 3.266% effective 2014-12-31. Assiduous Readers may recall that I have blamed the 2014 reset of TRP.PR.A for what we might now call ‘the first half’ of the current bear market. I recommended conversion to TRP.PR.F in 2014 and there was a conversion rate of about 62%. The company announced the extension to 2024 on 2019-11-21. TRP.PR.A reset at 3.479% effective 2019-12-31. I recommended holding, or converting to, TRP.PR.A and there was a 23% net conversion to that issue. TRP.PR.A reset to 4.939% in 2024.

TRP.PR.F commenced trading 2014-12-31 after a partial conversion from TRP.PR.A.

Thanks to Assiduous Reader niagara for bringing this to my attention!

BCE Inc. published their conversion notice for BCE.PR.F on 2024-12-16:

As of February 1, 2025, the Series AF Preferred Shares will, should they remain outstanding, pay, on a quarterly basis, as and when declared by the Board of Directors of BCE Inc., a fixed cash dividend for the following five years that will be based on a fixed rate equal to the product of: (a) the yield to maturity compounded semiannually (the “Government of Canada Yield”), computed on January 13, 2025 by two registered Canadian investment dealers appointed by BCE Inc., that would be carried by a non-callable Government of Canada bond with a 5-year maturity, multiplied by (b) the “Selected Percentage Rate”. The “Selected Percentage Rate” determined by BCE Inc. is 170%. The annual dividend rate applicable to the Series AF Preferred Shares will be published on January 16, 2025 in the national edition of The Globe and Mail, the Montreal Gazette and Le Devoir and will be posted on the BCE Inc. website at www.bce.ca.

There is a similar conversion notice for BCE.PR.E.

The Five-Year Canada rate is now 3.15%, if that is the case on the determination date of 2025-1-13, the dividend rate of BCE.PR.F will be 5.355%, or $1.33875 p.a.

BCE.PR.F is a FixedFloater which was added to the HIMIPref™ database in December 2008, when it was paying 4.40%. It reset in 2010 to 4.541% and after a net conversion to BCE.PR.F the issue pair was about 90% FixedFloater. It reset in 2015 to 3.110% and after a massive conversion the issue pair was about 60% RatchetRate. In 2020 the issue reset to 3.865% (which was 239% of the GOC-5 rate) and there was a net 17% conversion to FixedFloaters, which thus comprised about 59% of the combined issue size.

BCE.PR.E is a RatchetRate preferred, interconvertible every five years with BCE.PR.F. It was added to the HIMIPref™ database in May, 2012.

Thanks to Assiduous Reader niagara for bringing this to my attention!

National Bank of Canada has announced:

its intention to redeem all of its 12,000,000 issued and outstanding Non-Cumulative 5-Year Rate Reset First Preferred Shares Series 32 (the “Series 32 Shares”) on February 15, 2025, for cash at a redemption price of $25.00 per share, together with all declared and unpaid dividends.

The quarterly dividend of $0.2399375 per Series 32 Share declared on December 3, 2024 is the final dividend on the Series 32 Shares, and is payable in the usual manner on February 15, 2025 to shareholders of record on January 6, 2025, as previously announced.

Since February 15, 2025, is not a business day, amounts due to holders of the Series 32 Shares on that date will be paid on the first business day following that date, namely, Monday, February 17, 2025.

The redemption has been approved by the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions. Formal notice will be given to holders of the Series 32 Shares in accordance with the terms of the Series 32 Shares.

The redemption of the Series 32 Shares is part of the Bank’s ongoing management of its regulatory capital.

NA.PR.W is a FixedReset, 3.90%+225, that commenced trading 2014-10-9 after being announced 2014-9-30. The company announced the extension on 2019-12-19. NA.PR.W reset at 3.839% effective February 16, 2020. I recommended against conversion and there was no conversion. The issue is tracked by HIMIPref™ and is assigned to the FixedReset (Discount) subindex.

Thanks to Assiduous Reader IrateAR for bringing this to my attention!

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commmerce has announced:

its intention to redeem all of its issued and outstanding Non-cumulative Rate Reset Class A Preferred Shares Series 41 (Non-viability contingent capital (NVCC)) (Series 41 shares) (TSX: CM.PR.P), for cash. The redemption will occur on January 31, 2025. The redemption price is $25.00 per Series 41 share.

The $0.244313 quarterly dividend announced on December 5, 2024 will be the final dividend on the Series 41 shares and will be paid on January 28, 2025, covering the period to January 31, 2025, to shareholders of record on December 27, 2024.

Holders of the Series 41 shares should contact the financial institution, broker or other intermediary through which they hold the shares to confirm how they will receive their redemption proceeds.

CM.PR.P was issued as a FixedReset, 3.75%+224, that commenced trading 2014-12-16 after being announced 2014-12-8. In December 2019, notice of extension was published. CM.PR.P reset at 3.909% effective 2020-1-31. I recommended against conversion and there was no conversion. The issue is tracked by HIMIPref™ and is assigned to the FixedReset-Discount subindex.

Thanks to Assiduous Readers niagara and earlyriser for bringing this to my attention!

Quadravest has announced:

Canadian Life Companies Split Corp. (“the
Company”) is pleased to announce a stock split of its Class A shares. The Class A shareholders of record date at the close of business on December 19, 2024 will receive an additional 10 post-split shares for every 100 Class A shares they hold. The stock split is subject to approval by the Toronto Stock Exchange (the “TSX”).

Class A shareholders will continue to receive regular monthly cash distributions targeted to be $0.10 per share following the stock split, resulting in an increase in total distributions to be received of approximately 14%.

The Class A shares are expected to commence trading on an ex-split basis at the opening of trading on December 19, 2024. No fractional Class A shares will be issued, and the number of Class A shares each holder shall receive will be rounded down to the nearest whole number. The stock split is a non-taxable event.

The recent extension of the Company’s termination date included a retraction right for Class A shareholders and Preferred shareholders. Upon completion of the stock split, all retractions have been satisfied and no further action will be taken.

The impact of the stock split will be reflected in the next reported net asset value per unit as at December 31, 2024.

The Company invests in a portfolio of four publicly traded Canadian life insurance companies as follows: Great‐West Lifeco Inc., Industrial Alliance Insurance & Financial Services Inc., Manulife Financial Corporation and Sun Life Financial Inc.

Details of the dividend increase for LFE.PR.B on extension were previously reported on PrefBlog.

As noted by Assiduous Reader IrateAR, this implies that more Capital Units were retracted than preferred shares, which makes sense since the Capital Units have been trading at a discount to intrinsic, while the preferreds have been trading at a premium to par.

I was intrigued by an assertion in the press release and sent the following message to Quadravest just before noon today, but have not yet received an answer:

Your press release today claims that “Class A shareholders will continue to receive regular monthly cash distributions targeted to be $0.10 per share following the stock split, resulting in an increase in total distributions to be received of approximately 14%. ”

I do not understand how the 14% figure is derived. The LFE distributions are targetted to increase by 10% due to the 11-new-for-10-old split, while the maximum rate on LFE.PR.B has increased by 12.5% (from 8% to 9%) and the minimum by about 7.7% (from 6.5% to 7%).

It is not clear to me how this results in an increase in total distributions to be received of approximately 14%.

Sincerely,

Thanks to Assiduous Reader IrateAR for bringing this to my attention!

Update, 2024-12-18: Quadravest has issued a correction:

– Canadian Life Companies Split Corp. (“the Company”) is pleased to announce a stock split of its Class A shares. The Class A shareholders of record date at the close of business on December 19, 2024 will receive an additional 10 post-split shares for every 100 Class A shares they hold. The stock split is subject to approval by the Toronto Stock Exchange (the “TSX”).

Class A shareholders will continue to receive regular monthly cash distributions targeted to be $0.10 per share following the stock split, resulting in an increase in total distributions to be received of approximately 10%.

The Class A shares are expected to commence trading on an ex-split basis at the opening of trading on December 19, 2024. No fractional Class A shares will be issued, and the number of Class A shares each holder shall receive will be rounded down to the nearest whole number. The stock split is a non-taxable event.

The recent extension of the Company’s termination date included a retraction right for Class A shareholders and Preferred shareholders. Upon completion of the stock split, all retractions have been satisfied and no further action will be taken.

The impact of the stock split will be reflected in the next reported net asset value per unit as at December 31, 2024.

The Company invests in a portfolio of four publicly traded Canadian life insurance companies as follows: Great‐West Lifeco Inc., Industrial Alliance Insurance & Financial Services Inc., Manulife Financial Corporation and Sun Life Financial Inc.