PrefBlog

BCE Inc. has released its Notice of Conversion Privilege for BCE.PR.O:

1. Holders of BCE Inc. fixed-rate Series AO Preferred Shares have the right to convert all or part of their shares, effective on March 31, 2017, on a one-for-one basis, into floating-rate Cumulative Redeemable First Preferred Shares, Series AP of BCE Inc. (the “Series AP Preferred Shares”). In order to convert their shares, holders must exercise their right of conversion during the conversion period, which runs from March 1, 2017 until 5:00 p.m. (Montréal/Toronto time) on March 16, 2017.
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4. As of March 31, 2017, the Series AO Preferred Shares will, should they remain outstanding, pay, on a quarterly basis, as and when declared by the Board of Directors of BCE Inc., a fixed cash dividend for the following five years that will be based on a fixed rate equal to the sum of: (a) the yield to maturity compounded semi-annually (the “Government of Canada Yield”), computed on March 1, 2017 in accordance with the articles of BCE Inc., of a Canadian dollar denominated non-callable Government of Canada bond with a term to maturity of five years, and (b) 3.09%. The “Government of Canada Yield” computed on March 1, 2017 is 1.170%. Accordingly, the annual fixed dividend rate applicable to the Series AO Preferred Shares for the period of five years beginning on March 31, 2017 will be 4.260%.

5. As of March 31, 2017, the Series AP Preferred Shares, if issued, will pay, for each quarterly period beginning with the quarterly period from and including March 31, 2017 up to but excluding June 30, 2017, as and when declared by the Board of Directors of BCE Inc., a quarterly floating dividend rate equal to the “Floating Quarterly Dividend Rate” for such quarterly period. The “Floating Quarterly Dividend Rate” for any such quarterly period shall be equal to the rate, expressed as a percentage, equal to the sum of: (a) the “T-Bill
Rate”, calculated in accordance with the articles of BCE Inc. on the 30th day prior to the first day of the new quarterly period, and (b) 3.09%, calculated on the basis of the actual number of days in such quarterly period divided by 365. The “T-Bill Rate” means, for any quarterly period, the average yield expressed as a percentage per annum on three-month Government of Canada Treasury Bills, as reported by the Bank of Canada, for the most recent treasury bills auction preceding the applicable calculation date. The “Floating Quarterly Dividend Rate” computed on March 1, 2017 and applicable to the Series AP Preferred Shares for the quarterly period beginning on March 31, 2017 will be 0.89005% (annual rate of 3.570%, based on an initial T-Bill Rate of 0.480%).

BCE.PR.O came into existence by way of conversion from BAF.PR.C. This was a mandatory exchange following the BCE takeover of Bell Aliant.

BAF.PR.C was a FixedReset, 4.55%+309, that commenced trading 2011-12-7 after being announced 2011-11-21.

The most logical way to analyze the question of whether or not to convert is through the theory of Preferred Pairs, for which a calculator is available. Briefly, a Strong Pair is defined as a pair of securities that can be interconverted in the future (e.g., BCE.PR.O and the FloatingReset BCE.PR.P that will exist if enough holders convert). Since they will be interconvertible on this future date, it may be assumed that they will be priced identically on this date (if they aren’t then holders will simply convert en masse to the higher-priced issue). And since they will be priced identically on a given date in the future, any current difference in price must be offset by expectations of an equal and opposite value of dividends to be received in the interim. And since the dividend rate on one element of the pair is both fixed and known, the implied average rate of the other, floating rate, instrument can be determined. Finally, we say, we may compare these average rates and take a view regarding the actual future course of that rate relative to the implied rate, which will provide us with guidance on which element of the pair is likely to outperform the other until the next interconversion date, at which time the process will be repeated.

We can show the break-even rates for each FixedReset / FloatingReset Strong Pair graphically by plotting the implied average 3-month bill rate against the next Exchange Date (which is the date to which the average will be calculated).

The market appears to have a distaste at the moment for floating rate product; most of the implied rates until the next interconversion are lower than the current 3-month bill rate and the averages for investment-grade and junk issues are both well below current market rates, at -0.18% and -0.67%, respectively! Whatever might be the result of the next few Bank of Canada overnight rate decisions, I suggest that it is unlikely that the average rate over the next five years will be lower than current – but if you disagree, of course, you may interpret the data any way you like.

Since credit quality of each element of the pair is equal to the other element, it should not make any difference whether the pair examined is investment-grade or junk, although we might expect greater variation of implied rates between junk issues on grounds of lower liquidity, and this is just what we see.

If we plug in the current bid price of the MFC.PR.H FixedReset, we may construct the following table showing consistent prices for its soon-to-be-issued FloatingReset counterpart given a variety of Implied Breakeven yields consistent with issues currently trading:

Based on current market conditions, I suggest that the FloatingResets that will result from conversion are likely to be cheap and trading below the price of their FixedReset counterparts. Therefore, it seems likely that I will recommend that holders of BCE.PR.O continue to hold the issue and not to convert, but I will wait until it’s closer to the March 6 notification deadline before making a final pronouncement. I will note that, given the apparent cheapness of the FloatingResets, it may be a good trade to swap the FixedReset for the FloatingReset in the market once both elements of each pair are trading and you can – presumably, according to this analysis – do it with a reasonably good take-out in price, rather than doing it through the company on a 1:1 basis. But that, of course, will depend on the prices at that time and your forecast for the path of policy rates over the next five years. There are no guarantees – my recommendation is based on the assumption that current market conditions with respect to the pairs will continue until the FloatingResets commence trading and that the relative pricing of the two new pairs will reflect these conditions.

Insofar as the relative valuation of BCE.PR.O is concerned, Implied Volatility analysis indicates it’s a little cheap relative to other BCE issues, but this conclusion may be distorted because BCE.PR.Q is so expensive:

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 2nd, 2017 at 12:04 am 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.