FTN.PR.A Gets Bigger

Quadravest announced on January 9:

Financial 15 Split Corp. (the “Company”) is pleased to announce it has filed a short form prospectus in each of the provinces of Canada with respect to an additional offering of Preferred Shares and Class A Shares of the Company. The offering will be co-led by National Bank Financial Inc., CIBC World Markets Inc. and RBC Capital Markets.

The Preferred Shares will be offered at a price of $10.00 per Preferred Share to yield 5.25% and the Class A Shares will be offered at a price of $9.60 per Class A Share to yield 15.71%. The closing price of each of the Preferred Shares and the Class A Shares on January 8, 2014 on the TSX was $10.06 and $10.20, respectively.

The proceeds of the secondary offering, net of expenses and the underwriters’ fee, will be used by the Company to invest in a high quality portfolio consisting of 15 financial services companies made up of Canadian and U.S. issuers as follows:

Bank of Montreal National Bank of Canada Bank of America Corp.
The Bank of Nova Scotia Manulife Financial Corporation Citigroup Inc.
Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce Sun Life Financial Services of Canada Inc. Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
Royal Bank of Canada Great-West Lifeco Inc. JP Morgan Chase & Co.
The Toronto-Dominion Bank CI Financial Corp. Wells Fargo & Co.

The Company’s investment objectives are:

Preferred Shares:
i. to provide holders of the Preferred Shares with fixed, cumulative preferential monthly cash dividends in the amount of $0.04375 per Preferred Share to yield 5.25% per annum on the original issue price; and
ii. on or about the termination date, currently December 1, 2015 (the “Termination Date”), to pay the holders of the Preferred Shares $10.00 per Preferred Share, which was the original issue price of the Preferred Shares.

Class A Shares:
i. to provide holders of the Class A Shares with regular monthly cash dividends initially targeted to be $0.10 per Class A Share to yield 8.0% per annum on the original issue price of the Class A Shares, and currently targeted to be $0.1257 per Class A Share;
ii. on or about Termination Date, to pay the holders of Class A Shares $15.00 per Class A Share, which was the original issue price of the Class A Shares.

The Company is currently scheduled to terminate on December 1, 2015. The Company intends to seek shareholder approval to extend the Termination Date initially to December 1, 2020, and thereafter for additional terms of five years each at the discretion of Quadravest Capital Management Inc., as the manager of the Company. In conjunction with such extension, if approved, shareholders would be offered a special retraction right which would allow them to exit their investment in the Company on the same basis as if the Company were to terminate on its otherwise scheduled Termination Date. Further information regarding the term extension will be provided at the time meetings of shareholders are called to consider and, if deemed acceptable, approve the extension.

The sales period of this overnight offering will end at 9:00 a.m. EST on January 10, 2014.

A copy of the preliminary short form prospectus is available from the syndicate of underwriters.

This has been followed by an announcement January 10:

Financial 15 Split Corp. (the “Company”) is pleased to announce it has completed the overnight marketing of up to 1,531,000 Preferred Shares and up to 1,531,000 Class A Shares. Total proceeds of the offering are expected to be approximately $30 million. The Company has granted the dealers an overallotment of 229,650 units if exercised, bringing the total proceeds to $34.5 million. The offering was co-led by National Bank Financial Inc., CIBC World Markets Inc. and RBC Capital Markets and also included BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc., GMP Securities L.P. and Canaccord Genuity Corp. The sales period of this overnight offering has now ended.

The Preferred Shares were offered at a price of $10.00 per Preferred Share to yield 5.25% and the Class A Shares were offered at a price of $9.60 per Class A Share to yield 15.71%. The closing price of each of the Preferred Shares and the Class A Shares on January 9, 2014 on the TSX was $10.08 and $10.23, respectively.

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