The October, 2025, edition of PrefLetter has been released and is now available for purchase as the “Previous edition”. Those who subscribe for a full year receive the “Previous edition” as a bonus.
The October edition marks the inauguration of a new regular appendix, SSC, providing basic data on SplitShare Preferreds.
I am having trouble sending eMail to shaw.ca address, which seems to be common. I’m working on it – try sending me an eMail or contact me by ‘phone. Update: Also, try this suggestion and let me know – somehow! – that I should try again. eMail address that should be whitelisted are jiHymas@himivest.com, jiHymas@prefletter.com and jiHymas@himipref.com,
PrefLetter may now be purchased by all Canadian residents.
Until further notice, the “previous” edition will refer to the October, 2025, issue, while the “next” edition will be the November, 2025, issue scheduled to be prepared as of the close November 14, and emailed to subscribers prior to the market-opening on November 17. Prefletter is intended for long term investors seeking issues to buy-and-hold. At least one recommendation from each of the major preferred share sectors is included and discussed.
Note: The prefLetter.com website has seen three recent enhancements:
- All the seminar videos are now free for viewing on the site – please visit https://prefletter.com/videoIntroduction.php
- eMails of download links to clients with a year’s subscription will now include a note regarding how many issues remain to be delivered in that subscription.
- The second download alternative in the eMails with download links has been altered to prevent interference from particularly obnoxious eMail protection systems.
Note: My verbosity has grown by such leaps and bounds that it is no longer possible to deliver PrefLetter as an eMail attachment – it’s just too big for my software! Instead, I have sent passwords – click on the link in your eMail and your copy will download.
Note: There have been problems lately with corporate eMail protection systems that substitute “safe” links for the links sent in the eMails; the problem being that the “safe” links do not work and an error is generated by my software. To avoid possible problems and delays, please subscribe through an eMail account that is not “protected” by such software.
Note: The PrefLetter website has a Subscriber Download Feature. If you have not received your copy, try it!
Note: PrefLetter eMails sometimes runs afoul of spam filters. If you have not received your copy within fifteen minutes of a release notice such as this one, please double check your (company’s) spam filtering policy and your spam repository – there are some hints in the post Sympatico Spam Filters out of Control. If it’s not there, contact me and I’ll get you your copy … somehow!
Note: There have been scattered complaints regarding inability to open PrefLetter in Acrobat Reader, despite my practice of including myself on the subscription list and immediately checking the copy received. I have had the occasional difficulty reading US Government documents, which I was able to resolve by downloading and installing the latest version of Adobe Reader. Also, note that so far, all complaints have been from users of Yahoo Mail. Try saving it to disk first, before attempting to open it.
Note: There have been other scattered complaints that double-clicking on the links in the “PrefLetter Download” email results in a message that the password has already been used. I have been able to reproduce this problem in my own eMail software … the problem is double-clicking. What happens is the first click opens the link and the second click finds that the password has already been used and refuses to work properly. So the moral of the story is: Don’t be a dick! Single Click!
Note: Assiduous Reader DG informs me:
In case you have any other Apple users: you need to install a free App from the apple store called “FileApp”. It comes with it’s own tutorial and allows you to download and save a PDF file.
James, thank you for including Table SSC-1. It will be a benefit to me.
Brompton made an announcement on October 6 about splitting and adding 10% to the class A shares of the existing Class A shareholders holdings of both LBS and SBC. The class A dividend remains unchanged. I sent James PDFs of the announcements today. This is identical to the move Quadravest made with FTN in September and discussed in the October Prefletter.
It is not stated anywhere but I presume the managers (Brompton and Quadravest) will be issuing preferred shares at the market price, using the stock exchanges, to make whole units. To the extent this new supply exceeds the demand at the current price, the price of the preferred shares will drop. So existing preferred share owners may feel some negative effects, if they wish to sell into the current market. And the new preferred share owners will be contributing to the value of the class A shares by the amount they pay for the preferred shares over $10.
The issuers (Brompton and Quadravest) benefit by having more assets under management and more fees.
Quadravest did the same sort of split with BK capital shares in September:
https://www.quadravest.com/_files/ugd/78f11d_2f62650d3ad04c988a2908905fff8062.pdf
Interestingly, they chose to do a new pref share issue rather than issue through their ATM equity program which is still in place, presumably (since they have not announced the end of it).
The prime rate of 4.95% shown on Page 5 for calculating the dividend for BN.PR.B is wrong. The prime rate changed to 4.70% in September.
Oops! Quite right, and therefore the expected annual dividend given a 4.70% constant rate is $0.819.
I will note that the yield calculation is correct: that was taken off HIMIPref, not just updated by hand at time of writing.
However, since you are the first person to tell me about this typo, I have extended your subscription by one issue.