PrefBlog

Why is it that Bombardier updates its shareholder information dividend pages only after pay-date, instead of immediately after declaration date, the way a company might if, you know, it thought about what it was doing?

Memo to the Bombardier Board and Webmaster: when redesigning your Investor Relations section, please remember that while past dividend dates are of great interest to historians, your actual investors will be more interested in the current dividend and the specifics of its ex-date, record-date, pay-date and amount.

Anyway … the current BBD.PR.C / BBD.PR.D dividend has a record date of 10/19 and a pay-date of 10/31. You heard it here first.

Today’s brickbat is hurled at YPG Holdings.

Looking for the dividends dates via the “News” link on the TSX‘s quote page doesn’t bring up any news at all.

Moving to the TSX Company page and thence to the company website, we find … nothing. Not very impressive investor relations.

Anyway, the ex-date was 9/10, record 9/12, pay 9/26.

On July 30, George Weston announced:

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN THAT a quarterly dividend on George Weston Limited Common Shares, Preferred Shares, Series I, Preferred Shares, Series II, Preferred Shares, Series III, Preferred Shares, Series IV and Preferred Shares, Series V is payable as follows:
…
Preferred Shares, Series II    –  $0.321875 per share payable October 1, 2007, to shareholders of record September 15, 2007;

Will somebody please buy a calendar and send it to the George Weston board? September 15 is a Saturday.

In such cases, the way to think about the problem for purposes of calculating the ex-Dividend Date is to say … OK. It’s calculated as of 5pm on Saturday. The transfer agent is closed, so there won’t have been any changes to the books between 5pm Friday and 5pm Saturday. Therefore the real record date is Friday September 14; therefore the ex-Date is September 12.

I can understand that, due to sloppiness in preparation of the prospectus, the pay-date must be declared as the first of the month, even when that’s not a business day. But record dates are not even mentioned in the prospectus; there would appear to be no reason not to say the 14th when you mean the 14th … and this would make life a lot simpler, especially for retail.

Update: This goes for you, too, Brookfield!

BMT.PR.A last paid a dividend on May 4, with a record date of April 25.

Dividends for the current quarter have not yet been declared (according to the Toronto Stock Exchange) – I guess at Scotia Capital, summer vacations are more important. Or something.

The current dividend has been input to HIMIPref™ with the estimated dates 7/23, 7/25, 8/4.

Update, 2007-07-18: BMONT has announced:

The Board of Directors of BMONT Split Corp. (the “Company”) has declared today dividends of $0.3089 per Preferred Share and $0.1350 per Capital Share, payable on August 03, 2007 to holders of record at the close of business on August 02, 2007.

HIMIPref™ has been updated to reflect the correct dates.

Thanks a lot, guys! The last record date for this issue was April 16, but this quarter’s dividend hasn’t even been declared yet, according to TSX data.

July record dates for this company have been: 2003-7-31, 2004-7-29, 2005-7-15, 2006-7-28. I guess someone at Scotia is in the habit of a regular summer vacation!

Dates for the coming dividend have been estimated as 7/27, 7/31, 8/2

It seems the folks at Canadian Utilities are so excited about the recent new issue and upcoming redemption that they have forgotten that they have other outstanding issues!

There is no data available from the company or the TSX regarding the dividends payable June 1. I have estimated the ex-date to be 5/8, record 5/10.

There is no information on the website and there has been no press release.

An inquiry has been sent via http://www.duke-energy.com/investors/contact/addresses.asp.

Dates are:

Ex-Date : 3/28

Record Date: 3/30

PayDate : 4/15

Update, 2007-03-27 : Actually, this is kind of funny. Duke Energy at first denied any knowledge of any preferred shares whatsoever. When advised that the TSX listed their website as being the official source for information on these two issues, they said :

These issues are paid by Westcoast Energy Inc, through Spectra Energy.  The information would be provided by Spectra Energy.  I know that there is a press release available on their website, if you search their website for “dividends.”  The press release was issued on March 5 or March 6, but it will only provide the recently declared dividends.  You will need to contact Spectra Energy directly for this information.

Spectra? Who the hell is Spectra?

Anyway, I did find the relevant press release There is no indication that is was distributed via any industry-standard conduits, such as CCN Matthews or Canada Newswire

These are not listed on the website and there is no press release.

An inquiry has been sent to webmaster-e@transcanada.com.

The information is:

Ex-Date : 3/28

Record Date : 3/30

Pay Date : 4/30 (TCA.PR.X) and 5/1 (TCA.PR.Y)

 Update, 2007-3-22 Investor Relations has responded with a link to the press release, which I presume is not picked up by the “News” link on the TSX quotes for the prefs since the press release was coded only for the common, TRP.

I have replied to IR asking if they will report the dividend information in the Investor Centre, similarly to the common share dividends.

There doesn’t appear to be anything on the xstrata website to indicate the dividend dates for FAL.PR.H. I’ve sent them an inquiry as to whether they’ll be publicizing this information via their contact form.

At any rate, the record date is 3/15, it pays 4/1.