Well, this dividend has been described as mysterious, but I am in receipt of a communication from a hard-working (on Sunday afternoon!) corporate spokesman to the effect that:
Dividend information on HIMIPref™ has been changed to reflect this information. Well, that’s that.
I have not yet been able to determine the status of the “current” dividend.
As I intended yesterday, I attempted to make contact with the company today (via both eMail and telephone), but was unsuccessful.
The TSE and Bloomberg are both still not showing any trace of the dividend. Checking the TSE data, by the way, costs me a buck a throw, so I hope you guys are grateful!
I will continue checking.
BNA.PR.C had a busy day today, perhaps a little inventory clean-out, perhaps just happenstance. Last night’s close was 24.91-95, but it traded as low as $24.68. Not many changed hands at that price, but the market was thin! In the afternoon National sold two lots of 10,000 shares apiece to RBC, the first one at $24.90, the second at $24.80, which knocked the closing quote down to $24.68-85.
So the bid’s off $0.23 on the day! It’s certainly behaving as if it has just gone ex-dividend, anyway!
As previously noted, I’m having difficulties with this dividend! Dividend dates for this issue have been estimated as 2/26, 2/28, 3/7, even though the BNA.PR.A / BNA.PR.B dates are 2/20, 2/22, 3/7.
However, neither Bloomberg nor the TSX Data service are showing the BNA.PR.C dividend.
I don’t know what to do about this. The company has responded to my initial query about the dividend itself (which they say is the same as the other two) but not (as yet) to my follow-up, asking when the dividend on BNA.PR.C was declared. This is something of a point (in terms of checking for possible administrative foul-ups) because BNA.PR.C did not exist when the other dividends were declared (December 4 or 5, take your pick).
I’ll try again tomorrow, February 23, to get some answers.
Until then (at least!), the dividend dates on HIMIPref™ will remain as 2/26, 2/28, 3/7, but it’s only a guess! Since HIMIPref™ will evaluate the issue on a cum-dividend basis, whereas it might be ex-dividend, I recommend that any HIMIPref™ valuation leading to a purchase of BNA.PR.C be ignored until this matter is cleared up.
In a press release today, it was announced that:
The Board of Directors of AllBanc Split Corp. (the “Company”) has today declared a capital gains dividend of $0.76 per Class A Preferred Share and a capital gains dividend of $0.66 per Class A Capital Share, payable on March 9, 2007 to holders of record at the close of business on March 8, 2007.
The dividends previously estimated have been adjusted on HIMIPref™ to reflect the announcement.
According to both Bloomberg & the TSX, dividends for BNA.PR.A and BNA.PR.B have been declared and both these issues are ex-Dividend today, February 20. According to Bloomberg, the declaration date was 12/5; the TSX shows the declaration date as 12/4.
The HIMIPref™ data changes previously announced have been reversed for these two issues.
BNA.PR.C is a little trickier; the prospectus states that the expected record date for the first dividend will be 2/22, which implies an ex-dividend date of today; but neither Bloomberg nor the TSX are showing it.
I have sent an inquiry to the company.
As previously noted, there seems to be a little difficulty this quarter getting dividend information from BAM Split Corp. No data is available from press releases, their website, or TSX data services.
Accordingly, dividend dates for these issues have been re-estimated as being 2/26, 2/28 and 3/7.
The following table shows the last eight dividends for BNA.PR.A
| Recent Dividends, BNA.PR.A | |||
| Ex-Date | Record Date | Pay Date | Amount |
| 2005-02-18 | 2005-02-22 | 2005-03-07 | 0.390625 |
| 2005-05-18 | 2005-05-20 | 2005-06-07 | 0.390625 |
| 2005-08-18 | 2005-08-22 | 2005-09-07 | 0.390625 |
| 2005-11-18 | 2005-11-22 | 2005-12-07 | 0.390625 |
| 2006-02-20 | 2006-02-22 | 2006-03-07 | 0.390625 |
| 2006-05-19 | 2006-05-24 | 2006-06-07 | 0.390625 |
| 2006-08-18 | 2006-08-22 | 2006-09-07 | 0.390625 |
| 2006-11-20 | 2006-11-22 | 2006-12-07 | 0.390625 |
Dividends have not yet been declared for this issue. On the basis of past history:
| Recent Dividends, ABK.PR.C | |||
| Ex-Date | Record Date | Pay Date | Amount |
| 2005-03-07 | 2005-03-09 | 2005-03-10 | 0.760000 |
| 2005-06-07 | 2005-06-09 | 2005-06-10 | 0.760000 |
| 2005-08-22 | 2005-08-24 | 2005-09-10 | 0.760000 |
| 2005-11-22 | 2005-11-24 | 2005-12-09 | 0.760000 |
| 2006-03-07 | 2006-03-09 | 2006-03-10 | 0.760000 |
| 2006-05-19 | 2006-05-24 | 2006-06-09 | 0.760000 |
| 2006-08-22 | 2006-08-24 | 2006-09-08 | 0.760000 |
| 2006-11-22 | 2006-11-24 | 2006-12-08 | 0.760000 |
… it appears that this company enjoys playing games with the first dividend in each calendar year.
Why, I couldn’t begin to guess. However, the dividend dates have been estimated as 3/7, 3/9, 3/12; this will be checked in due course.