First Asset Investment Management Inc. has announced:
that the merger of Preferred Share Investment Trust (TSX: PSF.UN) (the “Fund”) with First Asset Preferred Share ETF (the “First Asset ETF”) (TSX: FPR) was implemented after the close of business on November 1, 2016.
In connection with the Merger, each issued and outstanding unit of the Fund received 0.29955 Unit of the First Asset ETF.
According to FPR’s investment objectives:
First Asset Preferred Share ETF’s investment objective is to provide unitholders with regular distributions; and the opportunity for capital appreciation from the performance of a portfolio comprised primarily of preferred shares of North American issuers. This actively managed portfolio will be comprised primarily of investment grade preferred shares and to a lesser extent investment grade corporate debt and convertible bonds. At least 75% of the Preferred Shares and Corporate Debt in the portfolio of FPR shall be rated investment grade at the end of every reporting period (June 30th and December 31st).
This has the very sad, unfortunate and most lamentable effect of suppressing the performance history of PSF.UN. As reported in the MAPF Performance: September 2016 report, as of September 30, 2016, the historical performance looked like this:
Figures for the First Asset Preferred Share Investment Trust (PSF.UN) are +0.11%, +2.45% and -1.67% for the past one, three and twelve months, respectively. The two-, three-, four- and five-year figures are -14.52%, -9.01%, -7.09% and -5.10%, respectively.