Brookfield Renewable Partners L.P. has announced:
that it has agreed to issue 8,000,000 Cumulative Minimum Rate Reset Class A Preferred Limited Partnership Units, Series 13 (the “Series 13 Preferred Units”) on a bought deal basis to a syndicate of underwriters led by TD Securities Inc., BMO Capital Markets, CIBC Capital Markets, RBC Capital Markets and Scotiabank for distribution to the public. The Series 13 Preferred Units will be issued at a price of $25.00 per unit, for gross proceeds of $200,000,000.
Holders of the Series 13 Preferred Units will be entitled to receive a cumulative quarterly fixed distribution yielding 5.00% annually for the initial period ending April 30, 2023. Thereafter, the distribution rate will be reset every five years at a rate equal to the greater of (i) the 5-year Government of Canada bond yield plus 3.00%, and (ii) 5.00%. The Series 13 Preferred Units are redeemable on April 30, 2023 and on each Series 13 Reclassification Date (as defined below) thereafter.
Holders of the Series 13 Preferred Units will have the right, at their option, to reclassify their Series 13 Preferred Units into Cumulative Floating Rate Reset Class A Preferred Limited Partnership Units, Series 14 (“Series 14 Preferred Units”), subject to certain conditions, on April 30, 2023 and on April 30 every 5 years thereafter (each a “Series 13 Reclassification Date”). Holders of Series 14 Preferred Units will be entitled to receive a cumulative quarterly floating distribution at a rate equal to the 90-day Canadian Treasury Bill yield plus 3.00%.
Brookfield Renewable has granted the underwriters an option, exercisable until 48 hours prior to closing, to purchase up to an additional 2,000,000 Series 13 Preferred Units which, if exercised, would increase the gross offering size to $250,000,000.
The Series 13 Preferred Units will be offered in all provinces and territories of Canada by way of a supplement to Brookfield Renewable’s existing Canadian short form base shelf prospectus. The Series 13 Preferred Units may not be offered or sold in the United States or to U.S. persons absent registration or an applicable exemption from the registration requirements under the U.S. Securities Act.
Brookfield Renewable intends to use the net proceeds of the issue of Series 13 Preferred Units to repay indebtedness. The offering of Series 13 Preferred Units is expected to close on or about January 16, 2018.
They later announced:
that as a result of strong investor demand for its previously announced offering, the underwriters have exercised their option to increase the size of the offering to 10,000,000 Cumulative Minimum Rate Reset Class A Preferred Limited Partnership Units, Series 13 (the “Series 13 Preferred Units”) to be offered on a bought deal basis to a syndicate of underwriters led by TD Securities Inc., BMO Capital Markets, CIBC Capital Markets, RBC Capital Markets and Scotiabank. The Series 13 Preferred Units will be issued at a price of $25.00 per unit, for gross proceeds of $250,000,000.
This issue looks quite expensive to me, but quantifying the degree of richness is difficult. According to Implied Volatility Analysis:
Click for Big
We see in this chart many of the same features we saw when reviewing the recent BPO new issue:
- The curve is very steep, with Implied Volatility equal to 40% (a ridiculously large figure), and
- Each of the extant issues is trading at a premium
The ludicrously high figure of Implied Volatility is something I take to mean that the underlying assumption of the Black-Scholes model, that of no directionality of prices, is not accepted by the market; in turn, I suggest that this reflects a rather touching faith that the existence of a minimum rate guarantee on reset also indicates that the issues will never, ever trade below par. There will be a lot of long faces when this test gets failed in the future!
However, for the long term, I suggest that any change in the slope of the curve will be a flattening, with a very high degree of confidence. This will imply that the higher-spread issues will outperform the lower-spread issues.
Complicating the above analysis is a high probability that the three extant issues will each be called at the first opportunity. I will certainly agree that this is likely to happen, but I balk at ascribing a 100% probability to this outcome. There may still be a few old geezers amongst the Assiduous Readers of this blog who can still (faintly) remember the Great Bear Market of 2014-16, in which quite a few similar assumptions made earlier turned out to be slightly inaccurate.
All told, though, I have no hesitation in slapping a ‘Very Expensive’ label on this issue.