Category: Issue Comments

Allbanc Split Corp. II has announced (on 2018-2-15):

that it has called 42,667 Preferred Shares for cash redemption on February 28, 2018 (in accordance with the Company’s Articles of Incorporation, as amended) representing approximately 7.282% of the outstanding Preferred Shares as a result of the special annual retraction of 85,334 Capital Shares by the holders thereof. The Preferred Shares shall be redeemed on a pro rata basis, so that each holder of Preferred Shares of record on February 26, 2018 will have approximately 7.282% of their Preferred Shares redeemed. The redemption price for the Preferred Shares will be $25.67 per share.

Holders of Preferred Shares that are on record for dividends but have been called for redemption will be entitled to receive dividends thereon which have been declared but remain unpaid up to but not including February 28, 2018.

Payment of the amount due to holders of Preferred Shares will be made by the Company on February 28, 2018. From and after February 28, 2018 the holders of Preferred Shares that have been called for redemption will not be entitled to dividends or to exercise any right in respect of such shares except to receive the amount due on redemption.

Allbanc Split Corp. II is a mutual fund corporation created to hold a portfolio of publicly listed common shares of selected Canadian chartered banks. Capital Shares and Preferred Shares of Allbanc Split Corp. II are listed for trading on The Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbols ALB and ALB.PR.C respectively.

ALB.PR.C is a SplitShare “yielding approximately 4.75% annually on the initial issue price”, maturing 2021-2-28, that commenced trading 2016-2-26. It is tracked by HIMIPref™ but relegated to the Scraps index on volume concerns.

Enbridge Inc. has announced:

that after having taken into account all conversion notices received from holders of its outstanding Cumulative Redeemable Preference Shares, Series D (Series D Shares) by the February 14, 2018 deadline for the conversion of the Series D Shares into Cumulative Redeemable Preference Shares, Series E of Enbridge (Series E Shares), less than the 1,000,000 Series D Shares required to give effect to conversions into Series E Shares were tendered for conversion. As a result, none of Enbridge’s outstanding Series D Shares will be converted into Series E Shares on March 1, 2018.

ENB.PR.D is now a FixedReset, 4.46%+237, that commenced trading (with a 4.00% coupon) 2011-11-23 after being announced 2011-11-14. It is tracked by HIMIPref™ but relegated to the Scraps subindex on credit concerns.

It will be recalled that ENB.PR.D will reset to 4.46% effective March 1 and I recommended against conversion.

Manulife Financial Corporation has announced (emphasis added):

the applicable dividend rates for its Non-cumulative Rate Reset Class 1 Shares Series 11 (the “Series 11 Preferred Shares”) (TSX: MFC.PR.J) and Non-cumulative Floating Rate Class 1 Shares Series 12 (the “Series 12 Preferred Shares”).

With respect to any Series 11 Preferred Shares that remain outstanding after March 19, 2018, holders thereof will be entitled to receive fixed rate non-cumulative preferential cash dividends on a quarterly basis, as and when declared by the Board of Directors of Manulife and subject to the provisions of the Insurance Companies Act (Canada). The dividend rate for the five-year period commencing on March 20, 2018, and ending on March 19, 2023, will be 4.73100% per annum or $0.295688 per share per quarter, being equal to the sum of the five-year Government of Canada bond yield as at February 20, 2018, plus 2.61%, as determined in accordance with the terms of the Series 11 Preferred Shares.

With respect to any Series 11 Preferred Shares that may be issued on March 19, 2018 in connection with the conversion of the Series 11 Preferred Shares into the Series 12 Preferred Shares, holders thereof will be entitled to receive floating rate non-cumulative preferential cash dividends on a quarterly basis, calculated on the basis of actual number of days elapsed in each quarterly floating rate period divided by 365, as and when declared by the Board of Directors of Manulife and subject to the provisions of the Insurance Companies Act (Canada). The dividend rate for the three-month period commencing on March 20, 2018, and ending on June 19, 2018, will be 0.96209% (3.81700% on an annualized basis) or $0.240523 per share, being equal to the sum of the three-month Government of Canada Treasury bill yield as at February 20, 2018, plus 2.61%, as determined in accordance with the terms of the Series 12 Preferred Shares.

Beneficial owners of Series 11 Preferred Shares who wish to exercise their right of conversion should instruct their broker or other nominee to exercise such right before 5:00 p.m. (Toronto time) on March 5, 2018. The news release announcing such conversion right was issued on February 12, 2018 and can be viewed on SEDAR or Manulife’s website. Conversion inquiries should be directed to Manulife’s Registrar and Transfer Agent, AST Trust Company (Canada), at 1‑800-783-9495.

The Toronto Stock Exchange (“TSX”) has conditionally approved the listing of the Series 12 Preferred Shares effective upon conversion. Listing of the Series 12 Preferred Shares is subject to Manulife fulfilling all the listing requirements of the TSX and, upon approval, the Series 12 Preferred Shares will be listed on the TSX under the trading symbol “MFC.PR.S”.

MFC.PR.J is a FixedReset, 4.00%+261, that commenced trading 2012-12-4 after being announced 2012-11-27. It is tracked by HIMIPref™ and is assigned to the FixedReset sub-index.

As this issue is not NVCC compliant and it is an insurance issue, it is analyzed as having a Deemed Retraction, effective 2025-1-31 (this date may change in the future).

The most logical way to analyze the question of whether or not to convert is through the theory of Preferred Pairs, for which a calculator is available. Briefly, a Strong Pair is defined as a pair of securities that can be interconverted in the future (e.g., MFC.PR.J and the FloatingReset MFC.PR.S that will exist if enough holders convert). Since they will be interconvertible on this future date, it may be assumed that they will be priced identically on this date (if they aren’t then holders will simply convert en masse to the higher-priced issue). And since they will be priced identically on a given date in the future, any current difference in price must be offset by expectations of an equal and opposite value of dividends to be received in the interim. And since the dividend rate on one element of the pair is both fixed and known, the implied average rate of the other, floating rate, instrument can be determined. Finally, we say, we may compare these average rates and take a view regarding the actual future course of that rate relative to the implied rate, which will provide us with guidance on which element of the pair is likely to outperform the other until the next interconversion date, at which time the process will be repeated.

We can show the break-even rates for each FixedReset / FloatingReset Strong Pair graphically by plotting the implied average 3-month bill rate against the next Exchange Date (which is the date to which the average will be calculated).

Click for Big

The market appears to be relatively uninterested in floating rate product; most of the implied rates until the next interconversion are scattered around the current 3-month bill rate and the averages for investment-grade and junk issues are slightly below current market rates, at +1.23% and +0.93%, respectively – although these break-even rates are much closer to the market rate than has been case for recent resets! Whatever might be the result of the next few Bank of Canada overnight rate decisions, I suggest that it is unlikely that the average rate over the next five years will be lower than current – but if you disagree, of course, you may interpret the data any way you like.

Since credit quality of each element of the pair is equal to the other element, it should not make any difference whether the pair examined is investment-grade or junk, although we might expect greater variation of implied rates between junk issues on grounds of lower liquidity, and this is just what we see.

If we plug in the current bid price of the MFC.PR.J FixedReset, we may construct the following table showing consistent prices for its soon-may-be-issued FloatingReset counterpart, MFC.PR.S, given a variety of Implied Breakeven yields consistent with issues currently trading:

Based on current market conditions, I suggest that the FloatingResets that will result from conversion are likely to be cheap and trading below the price of their FixedReset counterparts. Therefore, it seems likely that I will recommend that holders of MFC.PR.J continue to hold the issue and not to convert, but I will wait until it’s closer to the March 5, 2018 notification deadline before making a final pronouncement. I will note that once the FloatingResets commence trading (if, in fact, they do) it may be a good trade to swap the FixedReset for the FloatingReset in the market once both elements of each pair are trading and you can – presumably, according to this analysis – do it with a reasonably good take-out in price, rather than doing it through the company on a 1:1 basis. But that, of course, will depend on the prices at that time and your forecast for the path of policy rates over the next five years. There are no guarantees – my recommendation is based on the assumption that current market conditions with respect to the pairs will continue until the FloatingResets commence trading and that the relative pricing of the two new pairs will reflect these conditions.

Standard & Poor’s has announced:

• •We are affirming our ratings on Innergex Renewable Energy Inc., including our ‘BBB-‘ long-term corporate credit rating on the company, and removing the ratings from CreditWatch with positive implications.
• •We believe the acquisition of Alterra Power Corp. increases Innergex’s scale and improves diversity by geography and fuel-type or resource.
• •We are revising our financial risk profile to significant from
  intermediate after the additional debt used to fund the cash portion of the acquisition.

• •The stable outlook reflects our expectation that Innergex’s portfolio of power generation facilities will continue to operate under long-term contracts with investment-grade counterparties and generate fairly predictable cash flows to support its holding-company debt obligations.

…
S&P Global Ratings today affirmed its ‘BBB-‘ long-term corporate credit rating on Longueuil, Que.-based Innergex Renewable Energy Inc. At the same time, S&P Global Ratings affirmed its ‘BB’ global scale rating and ‘P-3’ Canada scale rating on the company’s preferred shares. S&P Global Ratings removed the ratings from CreditWatch with positive implications, where they were placed Nov. 2, 2017. The outlook is stable.
…
A downgrade could happen if FFO-to-debt ratio consistently falls below 23% over our outlook period. This could result from increased costs at projects under construction resulting in increased capital contributions from Innergex funded through debt, or from a significant reduction in cash flows from its
projects due to operational challenges.

An upgrade could happen if Innergex continues to meet projections while FFO-to-debt moves materially higher than 35%. This could result from increased cash flows from new projects or new acquisitions or deleveraging with paying
down of debt or lower balances outstanding on the credit facility.

Affected issues are INE.PR.A and INE.PR.C.

Manulife Financial Corporation has announced:

that it has completed its offering of 10 million Non-cumulative Rate Reset Class 1 Shares Series 25 (the “Series 25 Preferred Shares”) at a price of $25 per share to raise gross proceeds of $250 million.

The offering was underwritten by a syndicate of investment dealers co-led by RBC Capital Markets, Scotiabank and TD Securities. The Series 25 Preferred Shares commence trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange today under the ticker symbol MFC.PR.Q.

The Series 25 Preferred Shares were issued under a prospectus supplement dated February 12, 2018 to Manulife’s short form base shelf prospectus dated December 15, 2017.

MFC.PR.Q is a FixedReset, 4.70%+255, announced 2018-2-12. It will be tracked by HIMIPref™ and has been assigned to the FixedReset sub-index.

As this issue is not NVCC compliant and it is an insurance issue, it is analyzed as having a Deemed Retraction, effective 2025-1-31 (this date may change in the future).

The issue traded 798,808 shares today in a range of 24.70-94 before closing at 24.90-94. Vital statistics are:

This issue looks quite expensive to me, according to Implied Volatility Analysis:

Click for Big

We see in this chart many of the same features we saw when reviewing the recent BIP.PR.E, BEP.PR.M, CM.PR.S and NA.PR.E: the curve is very steep, with Implied Volatility equal to 40% (a ridiculously large figure).

The ludicrously high figure of Implied Volatility is something I take to mean that the underlying assumption of the Black-Scholes model, that of no directionality of prices, is not accepted by the market; the market seems to be taking the view that since things seem rosy now, they will always be rosy and everything will trade near par in the future.

If the MFC series were an isolated example of this behaviour, I would grin smugly to myself and declare that the implied directionality was a strong indication that the market is starting to take my predictions of Deemed Retraction seriously; but it’s not isolated. In addition, if the market was accounting for future redemption, I would expect the projected yields-to-deemed-retraction to be lower.

In the absence of DeemedRetraction, I balk at ascribing a 100% probability to the ‘all issues will be called, or at least exhibit price stability’ hypothesis. There may still be a few old geezers amongst the Assiduous Readers of this blog who can still (faintly) remember the Great Bear Market of 2014-16, in which quite a few similar assumptions made earlier turned out to be slightly inaccurate. The extra cushion implied by an Issue Reset Spread that is well over the market spread is worth something, even if nothing gets called.

All told, though, I have no hesitation in slapping an ‘Expensive’ label on this issue – according to the Implied Volatility analysis shown above, the theoretical price of the new issue without any accounting for the potential of a DeemedRetraction is 23.76. The two near-par issues, MFC.PR.Q and MFC.PR.J, form a noticeably expensive pothole in the plotted curve.

BCE Inc. has released the conversion notice for BCE.PR.C (Fixed-Floater) and a matching notice for BCE.PR.D (Ratchet Rate).

These issues constitute a Strong Pair.

The effective date of the interconversion is 2018-3-1. The deadline for instructing the company to convert shares is 5:00 p.m. (Eastern time) on February 19, 2018 – but note that brokers serving the public will probably have internal deadlines a day or two in advance of this. The new dividend rate on BCE.PR.C will be published 2018-2-7.

The outstanding shares of BCE.PR.C have paid 3.55% since the last conversion in 2013. Prime was at 3.00% when the last conversion was effective … 45bp lower than the current rate!

These shares are trading at very nearly the same price … alas, there isn’t much of a last-minute arbitrage possibility here!

I will post more when the fixed rate (for the next five years) is known.

Enbridge Inc. has announced (on January 30):

that it does not intend to exercise its right to redeem its currently outstanding Cumulative Redeemable Preference Shares, Series D (Series D Shares) (TSX: ENB.PR.D) on March 1, 2018. As a result, subject to certain conditions, the holders of the Series D Shares have the right to convert all or part of their Series D Shares on a one-for-one basis into Cumulative Redeemable Preference Shares, Series E of Enbridge (Series E Shares) on March 1, 2018. Holders who do not exercise their right to convert their Series D Shares into Series E Shares will retain their Series D Shares.

The foregoing conversion right is subject to the conditions that: (i) if Enbridge determines that there would be less than 1,000,000 Series D Shares outstanding after March 1, 2018, then all remaining Series D Shares will automatically be converted into Series E Shares on a one-for-one basis on March 1, 2018; and (ii) alternatively, if Enbridge determines that there would be less than 1,000,000 Series E Shares outstanding after March 1, 2018, no Series D Shares will be converted into Series E Shares. There are currently 18,000,000 Series D Shares outstanding.

With respect to any Series D Shares that remain outstanding after March 1, 2018, holders thereof will be entitled to receive quarterly fixed cumulative preferential cash dividends, as and when declared by the Board of Directors of Enbridge. The new annual dividend rate applicable to the Series D Shares for the five-year period commencing on March 1, 2018 to, but excluding, March 1, 2023 will be 4.46 percent, being equal to the five-year Government of Canada bond yield of 2.09 percent determined as of today plus 2.37 percent in accordance with the terms of the Series D Shares.

With respect to any Series E Shares that may be issued on March 1, 2018, holders thereof will be entitled to receive quarterly floating rate cumulative preferential cash dividends, as and when declared by the Board of Directors of Enbridge. The dividend rate applicable to the Series E Shares for the three-month floating rate period commencing on March 1, 2018 to, but excluding, June 1, 2018 will be 0.89984 percent, based on the annual rate on three month Government of Canada treasury bills for the most recent treasury bills auction of 1.20 percent plus 2.37 percent in accordance with the terms of the Series E Shares (the Floating Quarterly Dividend Rate). The Floating Quarterly Dividend Rate will be reset every quarter.

Beneficial holders of Series D Shares who wish to exercise their right of conversion during the conversion period, which runs from January 30, 2018 until 5:00 p.m. (EST) on February 14, 2018, should communicate as soon as possible with their broker or other intermediary for more information. It is recommended that this be done well in advance of the deadline in order to provide the broker or other intermediary time to complete the necessary steps. Any notices received after this deadline will not be valid.

ENB.PR.D is a FixedReset, 4.00%+237, that commenced trading 2011-11-23 after being announced 2011-11-14. It is tracked by HIMIPref™ but relegated to the Scraps subindex on credit concerns.

The most logical way to analyze the question of whether or not to convert is through the theory of Preferred Pairs, for which a calculator is available. Briefly, a Strong Pair is defined as a pair of securities that can be interconverted in the future (e.g., BAM.PR.Z and the FloatingReset BAM.PF.K that will exist if enough holders convert). Since they will be interconvertible on this future date, it may be assumed that they will be priced identically on this date (if they aren’t then holders will simply convert en masse to the higher-priced issue). And since they will be priced identically on a given date in the future, any current difference in price must be offset by expectations of an equal and opposite value of dividends to be received in the interim. And since the dividend rate on one element of the pair is both fixed and known, the implied average rate of the other, floating rate, instrument can be determined. Finally, we say, we may compare these average rates and take a view regarding the actual future course of that rate relative to the implied rate, which will provide us with guidance on which element of the pair is likely to outperform the other until the next interconversion date, at which time the process will be repeated.

We can show the break-even rates for each FixedReset / FloatingReset Strong Pair graphically by plotting the implied average 3-month bill rate against the next Exchange Date (which is the date to which the average will be calculated).

Click for Big

The market appears to be relatively uninterested in floating rate product; most of the implied rates until the next interconversion are lower than the current 3-month bill rate and the averages for investment-grade and junk issues are slightly below current market rates, at +1.10% and +1.12%, respectively – although these break-even rates are much closer to the market rate than has been case for recent resets! Whatever might be the result of the next few Bank of Canada overnight rate decisions, I suggest that it is unlikely that the average rate over the next five years will be lower than current – but if you disagree, of course, you may interpret the data any way you like.

Since credit quality of each element of the pair is equal to the other element, it should not make any difference whether the pair examined is investment-grade or junk, although we might expect greater variation of implied rates between junk issues on grounds of lower liquidity, and this is just what we see.

If we plug in the current bid price of the ENB.PR.D FixedReset, we may construct the following table showing consistent prices for its soon-may-be-issued FloatingReset counterpart given a variety of Implied Breakeven yields consistent with issues currently trading:

Based on current market conditions, I suggest that the FloatingResets that will result from conversion are likely to be cheap and trading below the price of their FixedReset counterparts. Therefore, it seems likely that I will recommend that holders of ENB.PR.D continue to hold the issue and not to convert, but I will wait until it’s closer to the February 14 notification deadline before making a final pronouncement. I will note that once the FloatingResets commence trading (if, in fact, they do) it may be a good trade to swap the FixedReset for the FloatingReset in the market once both elements of each pair are trading and you can – presumably, according to this analysis – do it with a reasonably good take-out in price, rather than doing it through the company on a 1:1 basis. But that, of course, will depend on the prices at that time and your forecast for the path of policy rates over the next five years. There are no guarantees – my recommendation is based on the assumption that current market conditions with respect to the pairs will continue until the FloatingResets commence trading and that the relative pricing of the two new pairs will reflect these conditions.

DBRS has noted:

that Aimia Inc. (Aimia or the Company) has sold its Nectar loyalty program and related assets to J Sainsbury plc (Sainsbury’s) for approximately $105 million (the Transaction). As part of the Transaction, Aimia will send to Sainsbury’s (1) $183 million of cash to provide coverage against the Nectar redemption liability and (2) $96 million of working capital related to December redemptions. Aimia will use $100 million of the proceeds from the Transaction to repay amounts outstanding on its credit facility.

Aimia purchased the Nectar loyalty program in 2007 for approximately $755 million. Nectar is the largest component of Aimia’s International Coalitions Segment, which generated $550 million of gross billings for the last 12 months (LTM) ended September 30, 2017 (25% of the Company’s total), and $68 million of adjusted EBITDA for the LTM ended September 30, 2017 (29% of the Company’s total).
…
The Transaction weakens Aimia’s business risk profile because of its impact on the Company’s size and scale, geographic diversification and customer concentration risk. Pro forma the Transaction, DBRS believes the Company’s debt profile is more manageable as a result of the repayment of $100 million of debt to a total of $358 million (pro forma, at September 30, 2017) and the $395 million of cash on the balance sheet (pro forma, at September 30, 2017). While the relevance of the Company’s adjusted debt-to-adjusted EBITDA ratio has been substantially reduced, DBRS expects that, pro forma the Transaction, it will remain near 2.0 times, in line with historical levels.

To receive the required lenders’ consent to complete the Transaction, Aimia agreed to make amendments to its credit agreement. These include (1) the repayment of $100 million outstanding on the credit facility, (2) a reduction in the limit of the facility to $208 million from the previous $300 million, (3) a mandatory quarterly cash flow sweep equal to 50% of the prior quarter’s free cash flow, (4) tighter leverage covenants and restrictions around common and preferred dividend payments, (5) the replacement of the Deferred Redemption Reserve Fund with a minimum liquidity covenant and (6) the restriction of using proceeds from the credit facility to repay any Senior Secured Notes. DBRS notes that Aimia’s $250 million of Senior Secured Notes mature prior to the Company’s credit facility in May 2019, and that the Notes will have to be refinanced or repaid using cash, internally generated cash flow and/or the potential for further non-core asset sales.

DBRS will continue to monitor Aimia’s customer engagement, reward redemptions and the competitive environment on a quarter-by-quarter basis, with the next quarterly results to be released on February 14, 2018. Should mileage accumulation decrease and/or redemptions accelerate more than DBRS’ expectations, in the absence of new partnerships, divestitures and/or capital raises, a downgrade could result.

The common equity got whacked:

The parent company of loyalty card Aeroplan faced another brutal day on the Toronto Stock Market as its shares plummeted Friday after rating agency DBRS warned about a possible downgrade on the sale of its Nectar business at a substantial loss.

Shares of Aimia Inc. fell nearly 17 per cent to $2.31 in Friday trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange after losing 25 per cent on Thursday.

And preferred shareholders aren’t too happy either:

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DBRS downgraded the AIM preferreds to Pfd-5(high) in August 2017, following the suspension of preferred share dividends by the company and the subsequent downgrade to P-4(high) by S&P.

Affected issues are AIM.PR.A, AIM.PR.B and AIM.PR.C.

Standard & Poor’s has announced:

• •Toronto-based Thomson Reuters announced that it has signed a binding agreement to sell a 55% majority stake in its Financial & Risk (F&R) business, which accounts for more than half of its consolidated revenue and EBITDA, to Blackstone Group for about $17 billion.
• •The company will use most of the net proceeds to fund stock repurchases totaling $9 billion to $11 billion and repay $3 billion in debt.
• •We are placing our ratings on Thomson Reuters, including the ‘BBB+’ corporate credit rating, on CreditWatch negative.
• •The CreditWatch placement reflects the possible loss of the diversification benefits we believe support Thomson Reuters’ creditworthiness and the ‘BBB+’ rating. At this stage, it isn’t clear whether the debt repayment and the more focused, smaller and stable remaining business will fully offset the sale.

…
We aim to resolve the negative CreditWatch placement within 90 days after we review the transaction and speak with Thomson Reuters’ management. We will reassess our rating and our view on Thomson Reuters’ business strategy, operating costs, and financial position and policy. We will also examine whether the benefits of a smaller, and more stable and focused company will offset the loss of the diversification benefits we previously considered supportive of Thomson Reuters’ creditworthiness.

If we believe the sale does not have a material impact on our view of the business risk and expect its pro forma adjusted leverage will remain comfortably below 3x over the next two to three years, we would likely affirm the ratings. Alternatively, if our analysis indicates a deterioration in the company’s creditworthiness or if we expect it will sustain leverage above 3x, we could lower the rating by up to two notches.

S&P currently rates the preferreds at P-2(low), in contrast with the recently confirmed DBRS rating of Pfd-3(high) assigned via downgrade in 2013.

TRI.PR.B is tracked by HIMIPref™ but relegated to the Scraps subindex on credit concerns.

Artis Real Estate Investment Trust has announced:

that it closed its previously announced public offering, through a syndicate of underwriters led by TD Securities Inc., RBC Capital Markets and Scotiabank (collectively the “Underwriters”), on a bought deal basis, of 5,000,000 cumulative minimum rate reset preferred trust units, Series I (“Series I Units”) at a price of $25.00 per Series I Unit for gross proceeds of $125,000,000 (the “Financing”).

DBRS Limited has assigned a rating of Pfd-3 (low) to the Series I Units.

Artis intends to use the net proceeds from the Financing to redeem its existing U.S. dollar denominated cumulative redeemable preferred trust units, Series C and for general trust purposes.

AX.PR.I is a FixedReset, 6.00%+393M600, ROC issue announced 2018-01-22. It will be tracked by HIMIPref™ but will be relegated to the Scraps subindex on the basis of its Pfd-3(low) rating from DBRS.

The issue traded 419,647 shares today in a range of 24.90-99 before closing at 24.95-97. Vital statistics are:

Investors should note that according to the prospectus (see SEDAR and search for Artis Real Estate Investment Trust Jan 24 2018 15:21:01 ET Prospectus (non pricing) supplement – English PDF 606 K; I am not permitted to link to this public document on its public website directly, because the Canadian Securities Administrators don’t want you to bother your pretty little heads with things like “prospectuses” and the like. Just do what the nice man at the bank tells you is best. If he wasn’t wise and benevolent, he wouldn’t be working for a bank, would he now?) [emphasis added]:

The holders of Series I Units will have the right, at their option, to reclassify their Series I Units as Preferred Units, Series J (“Series J Units”) of Artis, subject to certain conditions, on April 30, 2023 and on April 30 every five years thereafter.
…
The CRA (as hereinafter defined) has expressed the preliminary view that the reclassification of the Series I Units and Series J Units would likely result in a taxable disposition at that time.

The tax consequences of reclassification are not necessarily a good or bad thing, although note that the fact that such reclassification is an option suggests the issue will be trading below par. It will depend on your Adjusted Cost Base and personal tax circumstances.

Thanks again to Assiduous Reader JB who originally brought this issue to my attention.

The new issue looks quite expensive to me, according to Implied Volatility Analysis:

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This perceived richness has a different source than the other issues discussed here recently, such as the BEP.PR.M issue, the CM.PR.S issue and the NA.PR.E, since the calculated level of Implied Volatility, 9%, is actually quite reasonable.

In this case, the richness is due to the extraordinarily high value that retail – fighting the last war, as always – has placed on the minimum reset guarantee. If, like me, you consider the guarantee to have little or no value, you will expect the new issue to be trading near the price of AX.PR.A, which has an Issue Reset Spread of 406bp (and a current coupon of 5.662%). However, this issue closed today at 23.50 bid, indicating that retail considers the minimum rate guarantee to be worth somewhere around $1.50. Wow! That’s many multiples of the value of the call option in this analysis!