PrefBlog

BCE Inc. has announced:

that 585,184 of its 1,227,532 fixed-rate Cumulative Redeemable First Preferred Shares, Series Z (“Series Z Preferred Shares”) have been tendered for conversion on December 1, 2017, on a one-for-one basis, into floating-rate Cumulative Redeemable First Preferred Shares, Series Y (“Series Y Preferred Shares”). In addition, 1,276,161 of its 8,772,468 Series Y Preferred Shares have been tendered for conversion on December 1, 2017, on a one-for-one basis, into Series Z Preferred Shares. Consequently, on December 1, 2017, BCE will have 1,918,509 Series Z Preferred Shares and 8,081,491 Series Y Preferred Shares issued and outstanding. The Series Z Preferred Shares and the Series Y Preferred Shares will continue to be listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbols BCE.PR.Z and BCE.PR.Y, respectively.

The Series Z Preferred Shares will pay on a quarterly basis, for the five-year period beginning on December 1, 2017, as and when declared by the Board of Directors of BCE, a fixed cash dividend based on an annual fixed dividend rate of 3.904%.

The Series Y Preferred Shares will continue to pay a monthly floating adjustable cash dividend for the five-year period beginning on December 1, 2017, as and when declared by the Board of Directors of BCE. The monthly floating adjustable dividend for any particular month will continue to be calculated based on the prime rate for such month and using the Designated Percentage for such month representing the sum of an adjustment factor (based on the market price of the Series Y Preferred Shares in the preceding month) and the Designated Percentage for the preceding month.

It will be recalled that after the conversion notice was sent, I recommended holding or converting to BCE.PR.Y; afterwards, it was announced that BCE.PR.Z will reset to 3.904% until the next interconversion date on 2022-12-1.

Brompton Group has announced:

Dividend Growth Split Corp. (the “Company”) is pleased to announce it is undertaking an overnight treasury offering of class A and preferred shares.

The sales period for this overnight offering will end at 9:00 a.m. (ET) tomorrow, November 17, 2017. The offering is expected to close on or about November 29, 2017 and is subject to certain closing conditions including approval by the Toronto Stock Exchange (“TSX”).

The class A shares will be offered at a price of $8.00 for a distribution rate of 15% on the issue price, and the preferred shares will be offered at a price of $10.00 for a yield to maturity of 5.9%. The closing price on the TSX for each of the class A and preferred shares on November 15, 2017 was $8.16 and $10.15, respectively. The class A and preferred share offering prices were determined so as to be non-dilutive to the most recently calculated net asset value per unit of the Company (calculated as at November 15, 2017), as adjusted for dividends and certain expenses to be accrued prior to or upon settlement of the offering.

The Company invests in a portfolio of common shares of high quality, large capitalization companies, which have among the highest dividend growth rates of those companies included in the S&P/TSX Composite Index. Currently, the portfolio consists of common shares of the following 20 companies:

Great-West Lifeco Inc.	The Bank of Nova Scotia	CI Financial Corp.	Shaw Communications Inc.
Industrial Alliance Insurance and Financial Services Inc.	Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce	IGM Financial Inc.	TELUS Corporation
Manulife Financial Corporation	National Bank of Canada	Power Corporation of Canada	Canadian Utilities Limited
Sun Life Financial Inc.	Royal Bank of Canada	BCE Inc.	Enbridge Inc.
Bank of Montreal	The Toronto-Dominion Bank	Rogers Communications Inc.	TransCanada Corporation

The investment objectives for the class A shares are to provide holders with regular monthly cash distributions targeted to be $0.10 per class A share and to provide the opportunity for growth in the net asset value per class A share.

The investment objectives for the preferred shares are to provide holders with fixed cumulative preferential quarterly cash distributions, currently in the amount of $0.13125 per preferred share, and to return the original issue price to holders of preferred shares on the Company’s maturity date (November 28, 2019).

The syndicate of agents for the offering is being led by RBC Capital Markets, CIBC Capital Markets, National Bank Financial Inc., and Scotiabank.

So the Whole Units are being offered at a price of $18.00, versus a NAVPU of 17.38 as of November 9. The premium of 3.6% isn’t the fattest we’ve seen recently, but it’s still a nice business to be in!

Update, 2017-11-17: The offering was successful:

Dividend Growth Split Corp. (the “Company”) is pleased to announce a successful overnight treasury offering of class A and preferred shares. Gross proceeds of the offering are expected to be approximately $76 million. The offering is expected to close on or about November 29, 2017 and is subject to certain closing conditions including approval by the Toronto Stock Exchange (the “TSX”). The Company has granted the Agents (as defined below) an over-allotment option, exercisable for 30 days following the closing date of the offering, to purchase up to an additional 15% of the number of class A and preferred shares issued at the closing of the offering.

Laurentian Bank of Canada has announced:

that it will redeem, on December 15, 2017, all of its Non-Cumulative Class A Preferred Shares Series 11 then outstanding. Such preferred shares will be redeemed at a redemption price of $25.00 per share, together with any declared and unpaid dividends.

Beneficial holders who are not the registered holders of these shares should contact the financial institution, broker or other intermediary through which they hold such shares to confirm how they will receive the redemption proceeds. Formal notices and instructions for the redemption will be forwarded to all registered shareholders.

I love that “all registered shareholders” crap. I don’t know, frankly, whether this is mumbo-jumbo forced on them by idiot regulators or whether they simply see no point in being straightforward with their investors, but as stated in the prospectus supplement for this issue (SEDAR, search for “LAURENTIAN BANK OF CANADA Oct 11 2012 19:47:26 ET Prospectus supplement – English PDF 227 K”, our beloved regulators will not permit me to link directly to this public document; probably because you’re all common investor scum and not important civil servants):

On the closing of this offering, which is expected to be on or about October 18, 2012, the aggregate number of Preferred Shares Series 11 distributed hereunder will be delivered to CDS Clearing and Depository Services Inc. (“CDS”) or its nominee in the form of an electronic deposit in accordance with the non-certificated inventory system maintained by CDS. A purchaser of Preferred Shares Series 11 will receive only a customer confirmation from the registered dealer who is a CDS participant and from or through whom the Preferred Shares Series 11 are purchased.

So there is only one registered shareholder.

LB.PR.F is a FixedReset, 4.00%+260, that commenced trading 2012-10-18 after being announced 2012-10-11. This was actually a somewhat interesting issue, because it was issued without an NVCC clause despite the fact that the NVCC rules had been announced; so it has had a “Deemed Retraction” entry in its call schedule since the first day of trading.