AX.PR.A : No Conversion to FloatingReset

Artis Real Estate Investment Trust has announced:

that it has determined, based upon the election of holders of Preferred Units, Series A (“Series A Units”) (AX.PR.A), that less than 500,000 Series B Units would be issued on September 30, 2017 and consequently, no holders of Series A Units are entitled to reclassify their Series A Units to Series B Units on September 30, 2017.

Accordingly, all 3,450,000 Series A Units will remain issued and outstanding following September 30, 2017 and during the subsequent five year period commencing October 1, 2017, holders will be entitled to receive distributions, if, as and when declared by the Board of Trustees of Artis, in an annual amount per Series A Unit determined by multiplying the Annual Fixed Distribution Rate of 5.662% per annum by $25.00, payable quarterly on the last business day of each of March, June, September and December in each year during such period.

It will be recalled that AX.PR.A will reset to 5.662% and that I recommended against conversion.

As a result of all this AX.PR.A is a FixedReset, 5.662%+406, that was announced 2012-7-24 with a 5.25% coupon but only added to HIMIPref™ when the issue was rated by DBRS in 2013. It is tracked by HIMIPref™ but relegated to the Scraps subindex on credit concerns.

It is important to note that according to the prospectus supplement (available at SEDAR dated July 25, 2012; I am not permitted to link to it directly due to the cosy little contract the soon-to-be-bank-owned CDS has signed with regulators), taxation is complicated: “Artis’ income and net taxable gains for the purposes of the Tax Act will be allocated to the holders of Units and Preferred Units in the same proportion as the distributions received by such holders.” Particulars of the tax status of Artis’ distributions are published by Artis on their website.

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