PrefBlog

DBRS has announced that it:

has today changed the trend on its ratings of Atlantic Power Limited Partnership’s (APLP) Issuer Rating (rated B (high)) and its Senior Unsecured Debt & Medium-Term Notes (rated B (high)) to Stable from Negative, and subsequently discontinued these ratings. DBRS has also changed the rating trend of Atlantic Power Preferred Equity Ltd.’s (APPE) Cumulative Preferred Shares (rated at Pfd-5 (high)) to Stable from Negative and has discontinued this rating.

The discontinuation of the ratings of APLP and APPE is due to the request of the issuers.

The company announced in May that:

Consistent with the objective of acting in the best interests of the Company, its shareholders and its other stakeholders, the Company, as also previously disclosed, is committed to evaluating a broad range of potential options. These potential options include further selected asset sales or joint ventures to raise additional capital for growth or potential debt reduction, the acquisition of assets, including in exchange for shares, the dividend level, as well as broader strategic options, including a sale or merger of the Company. The Company has engaged Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Greenhill & Co., LLC to assist the Company in its evaluation of these potential options. No assurance can be given as to how the evaluation of any such potential options may evolve. The Company does not intend to comment further on its evaluation of potential options until it otherwise deems further disclosure is appropriate or required.

This statement was repeated in the 14Q2 10Q.

14Q2 earnings were pretty dreary, with a loss of $0.49 per share. Somebody writing a round-up under the auspices of Sleek Money, whoever they are, claims:

A number of analysts have recently weighed in on AT shares. Analysts at Scotiabank reiterated a “sector underperform” rating on shares of Atlantic Power Corp in a research note on Thursday, June 26th. On a related note, analysts at Imperial Capital initiated coverage on shares of Atlantic Power Corp in a research note on Thursday, June 26th. They set an “outperform” rating and a $7.00 price target on the stock. Finally, analysts at National Bank Financial downgraded shares of Atlantic Power Corp from a “sector perform” rating to an “underperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, June 25th. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, two have given a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the company. The company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $4.33.

S&P continues to rate the preferred shares at P-5 [Stable].

Atlantic Power Preferred Equity (a subsidiary that guarantees its parent’s debt) has two series of preferred shares outstanding: AZP.PR.A, a PerpetualDiscount, and AZP.PR.B, a FixedReset. Both are tracked by HIMIPref™; both are relegated to the Scraps index on credit concerns.

TD Securities has announced:

TDb Split Corp. (the “Company”) is pleased to announce it has filed a preliminary short form prospectus in each of the provinces of Canada with respect to an offering of Priority Equity Shares and Class A Shares of the Company. The offering will be co-led by National Bank Financial Inc., CIBC, RBC Capital Markets and will also include Scotia Capital Inc., TD Securities Inc., BMO Capital Markets, GMP Securities L.P., Canaccord Genuity Corp. and Raymond James.

The Priority Equity Shares will be offered at a price of $10.20 per Priority Equity Share to yield 5.15% on the issue price and the Class A Shares will be offered at a price of $6.10 per Class A Share to yield 9.83% on the issue price. The closing price on the TSX of each of the Priority Equity Shares and Class A Shares on August 15, 2014 was $10.29 and $6.17, respectively.

Since inception of the Company, the aggregate dividends paid on the Priority Equity Shares have been $3.67 per share and the aggregate dividends paid on the Class A Shares have been $3.05 per share, for a combined total of $6.72. All distributions to date have been made in tax advantage eligible Canadian dividends or capital gains dividends.

The net proceeds of the secondary offering will be used by the Company to invest in common shares of Toronto-Dominion Bank, a leading Canadian Financial institution.

XTD.PR.A was last mentioned on PrefBlog when it was entered the Protection Plan during the depths of the Credit Crunch.

XTD.PR.A is not tracked by HIMIPref™ since it is too small … but this can always change!

Post and headline corrected to reflect correct ticker, as pointed out by prefQC in the comments

Update, 2014-8-19: The offering was successful:

TDb Split Corp. (the “Company”) is pleased to announce it has completed the overnight marketing of up to 1,500,000 Priority Equity Shares and up to 1,500,000 Class A Shares. Total proceeds of the offering are expected to be approximately $24.45 million.

The Company has granted the dealers an overallotment of 225,000 units if exercised, bringing the total proceeds to $28.1 million

The offering is being co-led by National Bank Financial Inc., CIBC, RBC Capital Markets and also includes Scotia Capital Inc., TD Securities Inc., BMO Capital Markets, GMP Securities L.P., Canaccord Genuity Corp. and Raymond James.

The sales period of the overnight offering has now ended.

The Priority Equity Shares will be offered at a price of $10.20 per Priority Equity Share to yield 5.15% on the issue price and the Class A Shares will be offered at a price of $6.10 per Class A Share to yield 9.83% on the issue price. The closing price on the TSX of each of the Priority Equity Shares and Class A Shares on August 18, 2014 was $10.20 and $6.28, respectively.

The net proceeds of the secondary offering will be used by the Company to invest in common shares of Toronto-Dominion Bank, a leading Canadian Financial institution.

Brompton Funds has announced:

Brompton Lifeco Split Corp. (the “Company”) is pleased to announce it has filed a preliminary short form prospectus with respect to a treasury offering of class A shares and preferred shares.

The Company invests in a portfolio, on an approximately equal weight basis, of common shares of Canada’s four largest publicly-listed life insurance companies: Great-West Lifeco Inc., Industrial Alliance Insurance and Financial Services Inc., Manulife Financial Corporation and Sun Life Financial Inc.

The investment objectives of the class A shares are to provide holders with regular monthly cash distributions targeted to be $0.075 per class A share and to provide the opportunity for growth in net asset value per class A share.

The investment objectives of the preferred shares are to provide holders with fixed cumulative preferential quarterly cash distributions in the amount of $0.575 per annum and to return the original issue price ($10.00) to holders of preferred shares on the maturity date of the Company, April 29, 2019.

The syndicate of agents for the offering is being led by RBC Capital Markets, CIBC, and Scotiabank, and includes BMO Capital Markets, National Bank Financial Inc., GMP Securities L.P., Raymond James Ltd., Canaccord Genuity Corp., Desjardins Securities Inc., Dundee Securities Ltd., Industrial Alliance Securities Inc., Mackie Research Capital Corporation, and Manulife Securities Incorporated.

LCS.PR.A was last mentioned on PrefBlog in connection with a similar exercise last April.

LCS.PR.A is not tracked by HIMIPref™ as it is a small issue. There are slightly less than 2.7-million units outstanding but it’s growing rapidly and things could change!

Manulife Financial Corporation has announced:

that it has completed its offering of 14 million Non-cumulative Rate Reset Class 1 Shares Series 17 (the “Series 17 Preferred Shares”) at a price of $25 per share to raise gross proceeds of $350 million.

The offering was underwritten by a syndicate of investment dealers co-led by Scotia Capital Inc., RBC Capital Markets and TD Securities. The Series 17 Preferred Shares commence trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange today under the ticker symbol MFC.PR. M.

The Series 17 Preferred Shares were issued under a prospectus supplement dated August 11, 2014 to Manulife’s short form base shelf prospectus dated June 23, 2014.

MFC.PR.M is a FixedReset, 3.90%+236, announced August 11. It will be tracked by HIMIPref™ and has been assigned to the FixedReset subindex.

The issue traded 1,121,407 shares today (consolidated exchanges) in a range of 24.90-99 before closing at 24.97-99, 10×557. Vital statistics are:

Implied Volatility theory suggests that this issue is priced in-line with the other MFC FixedResets, with a fair value of 25.07. The outlier on the chart, with the highest Issue Reset Spread, is MFC.PR.E, which has been called for redemption.

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Update: On review, I find that I forgot to put a DeemedMaturity entry into the embedded option schedule. This has been fixed.

TransAlta Corporation has announced:

it has completed its public offering (the “Offering”) of 6,600,000 Cumulative Redeemable Rate Reset First Preferred Shares, Series G (the “Series G Shares”) at a price of $25.00 per Series G Share.

The Offering, previously announced on August 6, 2014, includes the partial exercise of the underwriters’ option of an additional 600,000 Series G Shares for proceeds of an additional $15 million bringing the aggregate gross proceeds of the Offering to $165 million. The net proceeds of the Offering will be used for general corporate purposes in support of our business, to reduce short term indebtedness and to fund capital investments of the Corporation and its affiliates.

The Series G Shares were offered to the Canadian public through a syndicate of underwriters led by RBC Capital Markets, CIBC and Scotiabank by way of a prospectus supplement that was filed on August 8, 2014 with securities regulatory authorities in Canada under TransAlta’s short form base shelf prospectus dated December 9, 2013.

Holders of Series G Shares are entitled to receive a cumulative quarterly fixed dividend yielding 5.30% annually for the initial period ending September 30, 2019. Thereafter, the dividend rate will be reset every five years at a rate equal to the 5-year Government of Canada bond yield plus 3.80%. Holders of Series G Shares will have the right, at their option, to convert their Series G shares into Cumulative Redeemable Floating Rate First Preferred Shares, Series H (the “Series H Shares”), subject to certain conditions, on September 30, 2019 and on September 30 every five years thereafter. Holders of Series H Shares will be entitled to receive cumulative quarterly floating dividends at a rate equal to the three-month Government of Canada Treasury Bill yield plus 3.80%. The Series G Shares are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol TA.PR.J.

TA.PR.J is a FixedReset, 5.30%+380, announced August 6. It will be tracked by HIMIPref™ and has been assigned to the Scraps index on credit concerns.

The issue traded 307,925 shares today (consolidated exchanges) in a range of 24.65-84 before closing at 24.72-75, 204×92. Vital statistics are:

Implied Volatility theory suggests that this issue is about $0.50 expensive, being fairly priced at 24.22 compared to its closing bid of 24.72. TA.PR.F, on the other hand, is about $0.66 cheap, fairly priced at 22.36 compared to its closing bid of 21.70.

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