PrefBlog

Middlefield Group has announced:

Middlefield Group, on behalf of E Split Corp. (the “Company”), is pleased to announce the Company has completed its initial public offering of 3,200,000 class A shares and 3,200,000 preferred shares for total gross proceeds of $80 million. The Class A and Preferred shares are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbols ENS and ENS.PR.A, respectively.

The Company will invest in common shares of Enbridge Inc., a North American oil and gas pipeline, gas processing and natural gas distribution company.

The Company’s investment objectives for the:
Class A shares are to provide holders with:
(i) non-cumulative monthly cash distributions; and
(ii) the opportunity for capital appreciation through exposure to the portfolio
Preferred shares are to:
(i) provide holders with fixed cumulative preferential quarterly cash distributions; and
(ii) return the original issue price of $10.00 to holders upon maturity.

The initial target distribution yield for the class A shares is 8% per annum based on the original subscription price (or $0.10 per month or $1.20 per annum).

The initial target distribution yield for the preferred shares is 5.25% per annum based on the original subscription price (or $0.13125 per quarter or $0.525 per annum).

Middlefield Capital Corporation, the advisor, will provide investment management advice to the Company.

The syndicate of agents was co-led by CIBC Capital Markets and RBC Capital Markets, and included BMO Capital Markets, Scotiabank, TD Securities Inc., Canaccord Genuity Corp., GMP Securities L.P., National Bank Financial Inc., Raymond James Ltd., Industrial Alliance Securities, Manulife Securities Incorporated, Desjardins Securities Inc., Mackie Research Capital Corporation, and Middlefield Capital Corporation.

ENS.PR.A is a Split-Share, 5.25%, 5-Year, that commenced marketing 2018-5-18. It will be tracked by HIMIPref™ but has been relegated to the Scraps subindex on credit concerns.

DBRS has assigned a rating of Pfd-3(high):

DBRS Limited (DBRS) finalized the provisional rating of Pfd-3 (high) assigned to the Preferred Shares issued by E Split Corp. (the Company). The Company issued an equal number (3,200,000) of the Preferred Shares and the Class A Shares at an issue price of $10.00 per Preferred Share and $15.00 per Class A Share. The Preferred Shares and the Class A Shares are issued on the basis that an equal number of Preferred Shares and Class A Shares are outstanding at all material times. Thus, one Preferred Share and one Class A Share will comprise one unit (the Unit). The Maturity Date will be on June 30, 2023. The term of the Company may be extended beyond the maturity date for additional terms of five years each as determined by the Company’s board of directors.
…
No distributions will be paid on the Class A Shares if (1) the distributions payable on the Preferred Shares are in arrears or (2) in respect of a cash distribution by the Company, the net asset value (NAV) per Unit is less than $15.00.

Net proceeds from the offering will be used to invest in a portfolio which will comprise primarily common shares of Enbridge Inc. (the Portfolio) in accordance with the Company’s investment objectives, strategy and restrictions. Up to 10% of the Portfolio may be invested in securities of any other issuer as determined by the manager.

Holders of the Preferred Shares are expected to benefit from a strong asset coverage of approximately 2.4 times (x) and sufficient dividend coverage of 2.4x. Based on the asset coverage, the net asset value of the Company after the issuance would have to fall by approximately 58% for the holders of the Preferred Shares to be in a loss position.

The issue traded 348,717 shares today in a range of 10.03-14 before closing at 10.14-15. Vital statistics are:

This entry was posted on Friday, June 29th, 2018 at 10:45 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.