PrefBlog

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.

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.