PrefBlog

Standard & Poor’s has announced:

• On Dec. 16, 2020, S&P Global Ratings lowered its long-term issuer credit rating (ICR) on Innergex Renewable Energy Inc. to ‘BB+’ from ‘BBB-‘.
• We also lowered our global scale rating and Canada scale rating on Innergex’s preferred shares by two notches to ‘B+’ and ‘P-4(High)’, respectively, from ‘BB’ and ‘P-3’.
• The downgrade reflects credit metrics that continue to show weakness in light of the company’s aggressive expansion, moderate distribution growth, negative free cash flow, and reliance on corporate debt to fund acquisitions and development.
• The stable outlook reflects our expectation that the company’s cash flow quality will continue to benefit from its portfolio of contracted assets, which will generate sufficient cash flows to support debt obligations at the holdco level. Under our base-case scenario, we forecast that funds from operations (FFO)-to-debt will be around 19% through 2022.

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Although Innergex has added considerable generation capacity to its portfolio, its capital and investment spending has exceeded cash flow growth. The downgrade essentially reflects credit metrics that continue to reflect weakness in light of the company’s aggressive expansion, moderate distribution growth, negative free cash flow, and heavy reliance on corporate debt to fund acquisitions and development projects. Since the beginning of 2017, Innergex has brought into operation more than 1.8 gigawatts of net capacity, either through developments, or via opportunistic acquisitions across different markets. Although this has helped increase scale, as well as improve asset and geographical diversity, the growth in distributable cash at the holdco level has lagged our expectations, and, combined with an increasing dividend and ongoing capital spending requirements, has left the company with limited, or no room for debt reduction.
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We view Innergex’s financial risk profile as aggressive based on projected FFO-to-debt of about 19% and debt-to-EBITDA of 4.0x-4.5x through our two-year outlook period. Our analysis excludes both nonrecourse project debt (and associated debt service) from corporate debt and adjusted interest expense.

The stable outlook reflects our expectation that Innergex’s cash flow quality will continue to benefit from its portfolio of contracted assets, which will generate sufficient cash flows to support debt obligations at the holdco level. We also expect that the company’s future investments and developments will remain backed by commercial certainty via contracts or PPAs. Finally, under our base-case scenario, we forecast that FFO-to-debt will remain around 19% through 2022.

We could lower the rating if we forecast FFO-to-debt will remain below 16% on a consistent basis. This could occur if the company’s reliance on corporate-level debt financing to support growth or expansion plans is higher than expected, or if its financial performance falls short of our base-case forecast.

We could consider a positive rating action if Innergex achieves and maintains FFO-to-debt ratio of at least 23% on a sustained basis. This could be achieved if the company experiences better-than-expected financial performance, or if it reduces debt at the holdco level.

Affected issues are INE.PR.A and INE.PR.C.

Great-West Lifeco Inc. has announced:

that holders of 59,830 Lifeco Non-Cumulative 5-Year Rate Reset First Preferred Shares, Series N (the “Series N Shares”) have elected to convert their shares into Non-Cumulative Floating Rate First Preferred Shares, Series O (the “Series O Shares”) and that holders of 547,303 Series O Shares have elected to convert their shares into Series N Shares.

Lifeco currently has 8,524,422 Series N Shares and 1,475,578 Series O Shares outstanding. After taking into account all shares tendered for conversion, there would be less than one million Series O Shares outstanding on December 31, 2020. As a result and in accordance with the terms and conditions attached to the shares, no Series N Shares may be converted into Series O Shares and all remaining Series O Shares will automatically be converted into Series N Shares on a one-for-one basis on December 31, 2020. Lifeco will give written notice to that effect to any registered holder on or before Thursday, December 24, 2020.

Following the automatic conversion, Lifeco will have 10,000,000 Series N Shares and no Series O Shares issued and outstanding. The Series N Shares and Series O Shares are currently listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbols GWO.PR.N and GWO.PR.O, respectively.

GWO.PR.N was issued as a FixedReset, 3.65%+130, that commenced trading 2010-11-23 after being announced 2010-11-15. The issue was met with disfavour and there was an inventory clearance sale closing 2010-12-3. After a notice of extension the issue issue reset to 2.176% in 2015. I recommended against conversion; there was a 15% conversion to the FloatingReset GWO.PR.O anyway. The company provided another notice of extension in November, 2020. The issue will reset to 1.749% effective 2020-12-31. It is tracked by HIMIPref™ and is assigned to the FixedReset (Insurance) subindex.

GWO.PR.O is a FloatingReset, Bills+130, that arose in 2015 via a partial conversion from GWO.PR.N. GWO.PR.O is tracked by HIMIPref™ but has been relegated to the Scraps – FloatingReset subindex on volume concerns.

Capital Power Corporation has announced:

that after having taken into account all Election Notices following the December 16, 2020 conversion deadline, in respect of the Cumulative Rate Reset Preference Shares, Series 1 (Series 1 Shares) tendered for conversion into Cumulative Floating Rate Preference Shares, Series 2 (Series 2 Shares), the holders of Series 1 Shares were not entitled to convert their shares. There were 687,245 Series 1 Shares tendered for conversion, which was less than the required one million shares required for conversion into Series 2 Shares.

There are five million Series 1 Shares listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) under the symbol CPX.PR.A. Effective December 31, 2020, the Annual Fixed Dividend Rate for the next five-year period has been reset to 2.62100%.

For more information on the terms of, and risks associated with an investment in the Series 1 Shares, please see Capital Power’s (final) short form prospectus dated December 8, 2010 which is available on sedar.com or on Capital Power’s website at capitalpower.com.

CPX.PR.A was issued as a FixedReset 4.60%+217 that commenced trading 2010-12-16 after being announced 2010-12-1. It reset to 3.06% effective 2015-12-31 and I recommended against conversion; there was no conversion to FloatingResets. It will reset to 2.621% effective 2020-12-31. The issue is tracked by HIMIPref™ but is relegated to the Scraps – FixedReset (Discount) subindex on credit concerns.

Enbridge Inc. has announced:

that Westcoast Energy Inc. (“Westcoast”) intends to exercise its right to redeem all of its outstanding Cumulative 5-Year Minimum Rate Reset Redeemable First Preferred Shares, Series 10 (“Series 10 Shares”) on January 15, 2021 at a price of $25.00 per Series 10 Share, together with all accrued and unpaid dividends, if any.

Beneficial holders who are not directly the registered holders of the Series 10 Shares should contact the financial institution, broker or other intermediary through which they hold these shares to confirm how they will receive their redemption proceeds. Inquiries from registered shareholders should be directed to Westcoast’s Registrar and Transfer Agent, Computershare Investor Services Inc., at 1 800-564-6253 (Canada and United States) or 1-514-982-7555 (Outside North America).

W.PR.K was issued as a FixedReset, 5.25%+426M525, that commenced trading 2015-12-15 after being announced 2015-11-24.