PrefBlog

DBRS has announced that it:

has today discontinued the Issuer Rating, Medium-Term Notes and Preferred Shares – Cumulative ratings of Emera Inc. (Emera or the Company). The ratings are being discontinued at the Company’s request. Prior to the rating discontinuation, Emera’s ratings were Under Review with Developing Implications following the announcement that the Company agreed to acquire TECO Energy Incorporated on September 4, 2015.

This follows the announcement by Emera:

that in connection with the proposed offering of unsecured, subordinated notes (the “Hybrid Notes”) of Emera, it has filed a preliminary short form base shelf prospectus (the “Base Shelf”) with the Nova Scotia Securities Commission (the “NSSC”) under the United States / Canada Multijurisdictional Disclosure System and a corresponding shelf registration statement (the “Registration Statement”) with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) on Form F-10.

In addition, Emera announced today that: (i) Emera US Finance LP (the “U.S. Notes Issuer”), a limited partnership wholly-owned directly and indirectly by Emera, intends to issue multiple series of United States dollar denominated senior, unsecured notes (the “U.S. Notes”), fully and unconditionally guaranteed by Emera US Holdings Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Emera (“EUSHI”) and Emera (together with EUSHI, the “Guarantors”), pursuant to an offering memorandum; and (ii) Emera intends to issue one or more series of Canadian dollar denominated senior, unsecured notes (the “Canadian Notes”), and may issue Canadian dollar denominated unsecured, subordinated notes, in each case, on a private placement basis in each of the provinces of Canada pursuant to an offering memorandum.

Emera has filed the Base Shelf and Registration Statement relating to the proposed offering of the Hybrid Notes and is separately undertaking the proposed offerings of the U.S. Notes and the Canadian Notes, and may undertake an offering of Canadian dollar denominated unsecured, subordinated notes, to raise up to approximately Cdn$6.6 billion in the aggregate as part of the financing of the previously announced acquisition of TECO Energy, Inc. (“TECO Energy”) by Emera (the “Acquisition”).
…
Upon the closing of the Acquisition, Emera intends to use the net proceeds from any offering of Hybrid Notes, U.S. Notes and/or Canadian Notes to finance, directly or indirectly, part of the purchase price payable for the Acquisition (including acquisition-related expenses) and to reduce amounts outstanding under the credit facilities established in favour of Emera to fund the purchase price payable for the Acquisition, to the extent any amounts are drawn on such facilities in connection with the Acquisition. If certain of the net proceeds from any offering of Hybrid Notes, U.S. Notes or Canadian Notes are not otherwise required to complete the Acquisition, Emera intends to use such net proceeds for general corporate purposes.

If (i) the Acquisition is not consummated on or prior to the later of December 31, 2016 and the date that is no later than June 30, 2017 if the closing of the Acquisition has been extended by Emera or TECO Energy in accordance with the terms of the agreement and plan of merger relating to the Acquisition (the “Acquisition Agreement”) (as such date may be extended, the “special mandatory redemption triggering date”) or (ii) the Acquisition Agreement is terminated at any time prior to the special mandatory redemption triggering date, then Emera will be required to redeem any Hybrid Notes and may be required to redeem the Canadian Notes and the U.S. Notes Issuer will be required to redeem any U.S. Notes.

Standard & Poor’s has announced:

• •Nova Scotia-based electric utility Emera Inc. has announced its intention to issue subordinated hybrid notes and senior unsecured notes to finance in part its purchase of TECO Energy.
• •At the same time, Emera has announced its intention to issue senior unsecured notes in the U.S. through its wholly owned and unconditionally guaranteed subsidiary, Emera US Finance LP.
• •We are assigning our ‘BBB’ issue-level rating to the senior unsecured notes of Emera and Emera US Finance L.P., and our ‘BBB-‘ issue-level rating to Emera’s subordinated hybrid notes.

…
S&P Global Ratings today said it assigned its ‘BBB’ issue-level rating to Emera Inc. and Emera US Finance L.P.’s proposed senior unsecured notes. We expect that total issuance between the two entities of senior unsecured notes will be approximately US$3.4 billion. In addition, we have assigned our ‘BBB-‘ issue-level rating to Emera’s proposed subordinated hybrid note issuance. We expect that total issuance of hybrid notes will be up to approximately US$1.25 billion. These issuances are to finance in part Emera’s purchase of TECO Energy.

EMA had been rated Pfd-3(high) by DBRS; it is rated P-2(low) by S&P.

Affected issues are EMA.PR.A, EMA.PR.B, EMA.PR.C, EMA.PR.E and EMA.PR.F.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 1st, 2016 at 10:32 pm and is filed under Issue Comments. 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.