PrefBlog

Great-West Lifeco has announced that it:

has today entered into an agreement with a syndicate of underwriters co-led by BMO Capital Markets, RBC Capital Markets and Scotiabank, under which the underwriters have agreed to buy, on a bought deal basis, 6,000,000 Non-Cumulative First Preferred Shares, Series Q (the “Series Q Shares”) from Lifeco for sale to the public at a price of $25.00 per Series Q Share, representing aggregate gross proceeds of $150 million.

Lifeco has granted the underwriters an underwriters’ option to purchase an additional 2,000,000 Series Q Shares at the same offering price. Should the underwriters’ option be fully exercised, the total gross proceeds of the Series Q Shares offering will be $200 million.

The Series Q Shares will yield 5.15% per annum, payable quarterly, as and when declared by the Board of Directors of the Company. The Series Q Shares will not be redeemable prior to September 30, 2017. On or after September 30, 2017, the Company may, on not less than 30 nor more than 60 days’ notice, redeem the Series Q Shares in whole or in part, at the Company’s option, by the payment in cash of $26.00 per Series Q Share if redeemed prior to September 30, 2018, of $25.75 per Series Q Share if redeemed on or after September 30, 2018 but prior to September 30, 2019, of $25.50 per Series Q Share if redeemed on or after September 30, 2019 but prior to September 30, 2020, of $25.25 per Series Q Share if redeemed on or after September 30, 2020 but prior to September 30, 2021 and of $25.00 per Series Q Share if redeemed on or after September 30, 2021, in each case together with all declared and unpaid dividends up to but excluding the date fixed for redemption.

The Series Q Shares offering is expected to close on July 6, 2012. The net proceeds will be used for general corporate purposes and to augment Lifeco’s current liquidity position.

This will be characterized in the HIMIPref™ database as a DeemedRetractible; which is to say, analysis will assume a maturity 2022-1-31 at 25.00, although this is not in the formal terms of the issue.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 28th, 2012 at 11:37 am and is filed under New Issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.