Category: HIMIPref News

Better Communication, Please!

ABK.PR.C Dividend Estimate

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.

Data Changes

ENB.PR.D Redemption Completed

ENB.PR.D, an interest bearing preferred security, was redeemed today as previously noted. They had, presumably, no difficulty in finding the money for the redemption, what with their recent equity issue and my January gas bill.

This leaves the interestBearing index bereft of all operating companies; it is now populated solely by split-share corporations.

It now remains to be seen whether they will also redeem ENB.PR.A, a perpetual that is currently part of the PerpetualPremium index. This issue has been mentioned as occasionally drifting into negative YTW territory; it’s currently redeemable at $25.25, but will be redeemable at par in December.

Oops! There is actually one remaining operating company issue left in the interestBearing index … BAM.PR.T. However, it is virtually certain that BAM.PR.T will be redeemed in June, so I was only off by five months!

Data Changes

BNA.PR.A / BNA.PR.B / BNA.PR.C : Feb '07 Dividend Dates Estimated

BAM Split Corp. has joined Manulife on this month’s lengthy list of irritations by not having declared their dividends as yet.

On the basis of recent dividends I am currently assuming that the relevant dates are 2/20, 2/22 and 3/7 but these dates should be considered tentative in the extreme.

I will confirm these dates when available from either the company or the TSX.

Data Changes

CM.PR.J : Not as Bad as Expected

The new issue from CIBC commenced trading today and on heavy volume of 807,580 shares closed at $24.87-88, 30×100.

CIBC announced that

Following the successful sale of the initially announced
10 million Series 32 Shares, the underwriters exercised an option to purchase
an additional 2 million shares.

The securityCode for this issue is A42019, replacing the preIssue code of P25005. A reorgDataEntry has been input to reflect the change.

curvePrice calculations for it and the comparables previously examined are:

Curve Prices (and other info) on CM.PR.J and comparables
Data CM.PR.J CM.PR.I CM.PR.H RY.PR.D
Price due to base-rate 23.05 23.72 23.95 23.17
Price due to short-term -0.47 -0.48 -0.50 -0.48
Price due to long-term 1.23 1.26 1.30 1.25
Price due to Liquidity 1.43 1.48 1.49 1.48
Price due to error 0.04 0.04 0.04 -0.02
Price due to Credit Spread (Low) -0.54 -0.55 -0.56 NA
Curve Price $24.75 $25.46 $25.72 $25.40
Quote 2/14 $24.87-88 25.50-52 25.86-98 25.01-08
Annual Dividend $1.125 $1.175 $1.20 $1.125
After-Tax YTW 3.61% 3.56% 3.42% 3.62%
Pre-Tax YTW 4.54% 4.48% 4.30% 4.56%

Note that due to recalculation of the yield curve, the values for the components of the curve price are not directly comparable to the components previously reported; but, of course, each reported calculation is internally consistent.

This issue has been added to the PerpetualDiscount index – the current composition of this index has been uploaded.

Data Changes

MFC.PR.A / MFC.PR.B / MFC.PR.C Dividends Declared!

One can say many things about Manulife, as a company and as an investment, but one cannot say that their dividend declaration policy is particularly investor-friendly.They have only just gotten around to declaring their current dividend. The table below shows the dividend information for MFC.PR.A:

MFC.PR.A Dividend Record
Ex-Date Record Date Pay Date Amount
2003-08-13 2003-08-15 2003-09-19 0.256250
2003-11-13 2003-11-17 2003-12-19 0.256250
2004-02-13 2004-02-17 2004-03-19 0.256250
2004-05-13 2004-05-17 2004-06-21 0.256250
2004-08-12 2004-08-16 2004-09-20 0.256250
2004-11-12 2004-11-16 2004-12-20 0.256250
2005-02-18 2005-02-22 2005-03-19 0.256250
2005-05-18 2005-05-20 2005-06-19 0.256250
2005-08-12 2005-08-16 2005-09-19 0.256250
2005-11-10 2005-11-15 2005-12-19 0.256250
2006-02-17 2006-02-21 2006-03-19 0.256250
2006-05-12 2006-05-16 2006-06-19 0.256250
2006-08-14 2006-08-16 2006-09-19 0.256250
2006-11-10 2006-11-15 2006-12-19 0.256250
2007-02-22 2007-02-26 2007-03-19 0.256250

Look at the way the record dates bounce around, with the February ’07 record date being egregiously late! This is not the type of predictability that builds markets in preferred shares.

HIMIPref™ previously recorded an estimate for the Feb ’07 dividend specifications; this has now been changed to reflect the announcement.

Update: I have sent a link to this post to Manulife Shareholder Services.

Data Changes

CFS.PR.A Eases into Market

It was a very quiet opening for this issue, with only 11,200 shares changing hands. The leveraging / deleveraging feature appears to have found favour only with DBRS!

However, to my chagrin (and, undoubtedly, CC&L Capital Markets’), this is a teeny-tiny issue: the TSX reports that only 1.5-million shares are outstanding, for a value of $15-million in prefs and total company capitalization of $30-million.

Still, even if you take the view that this thing will trade by appointment only, you can’t deny that a lot of investors will consider it worth holding. It’s Pfd-1 and I calculate the curvePrice to be $10.42, compared to the closing quote of $10.06-25:

  CFS.PR.A CGI.PR.C
Price due to base-rate 9.87  23.66
Price due to short-term -0.20  -0.62
Price due to long-term 0.52  1.55
Price due to SplitShareCorp -0.21  -0.90
Price due to Retractibility 0.30  1.24
Price due to Liquidity 0.15  -0.27
Price due to error 0.01  0.09
Curve Price (some rounding error) 10.42  24.75
Quote 10.06-25  25.86-09
After-Tax bid-YTW 3.29%  2.82%
Pre-Tax bid-YTW 4.14%  3.55%
Presumed Maturity 2012-1-31  2016-06-14

Even if one takes the view that the +$0.15 allowance for liquidity turns into -$0.10 for illiquidity (probably a safe bet!) there’s room for some capital gains for those who buy and sell liquidity in small amounts!

This issue has been entered into the HIMIPref™ database with the securityCode A41410, which replaces the preIssue code of P25006. A reorgDataEntry has been processed.

The issue has been added to the SplitShares index.

Data Changes

FCN.PR.A / FCF.PR.A / FCI.PR.A / FIG.PR.A Merger Reflected on TSX

As noted earlier, all approvals for this merger were received. The merger has now been reflected on the TSX and FIG.PR.A is the continuing symbol. reorgDataEntries have been processed for each of the exchanges effected:

Continuing Ticker : FIG.PR.A
Ticker Security Code
FCN.PR.A B35002
FCF.PR.A B35001
FCI.PR.A B35000
Continuing Code : B39000

 

6,700 shares of FIG.PR.A traded today in a range of $10.01-15. The closing quotation was $10.05-10, 20×50. The TSX is now reporting 17,464,308 shares of this issue outstanding – quite a nice size for an interest bearing split share.

Data Changes

SLF.PR.E Sinks on First Day of Trading

In the announcement of this new issue I claimed that the curvePrice of this issue was $24.73 and I am pleased to announce that the close on the first day of trading was $24.73, bang on. The closing quotation was $24.68-72, 8×66.

(Note: The link to “first day of trading” may not work as desired. It’s just a link to the SunLife press release on the SunLife site announcing completion of the issue. SunLife has some kind of bizarre script in place, presumably to ensure that their press releases remain secret.) 

Rather odd trading in this issue today, actually. The volume was 450,415, but there were only four trades after noon, totalling 6,420 shares. The trading range for the day was $24.64-75.

The issue has been added to HIMIPref™ and a reorgDataEntry processed to reflect the change from the preIssue securityCode of P50010 to the new security code of A48984.