PrefBlog

Fairfax Financial Holdings has announced:

that it will issue in Canada 8 million Preferred Shares, Series C at a price of $25.00 per share, for aggregate gross proceeds of $200 million, on a bought deal basis to a syndicate of Canadian underwriters.

Holders of the Preferred Shares, Series C will be entitled to receive a cumulative quarterly fixed dividend yielding 5.75% annually for the initial five year period ending December 31, 2014. Thereafter, the dividend rate will be reset every five years at a rate equal to the then current 5-year Government of Canada bond yield plus 3.15%.

Holders of Preferred Shares, Series C will have the right, at their option, to convert their shares into Preferred Shares, Series D, subject to certain conditions, on December 31, 2014, and on December 31st every five years thereafter. Holders of the Preferred Shares, Series D will be entitled to receive cumulative quarterly floating dividends at a rate equal to the then current three-month Government of Canada Treasury Bill yield plus 3.15%.

Fairfax has granted the underwriters an option, exercisable in whole or in part at any time up to 48 hours prior to closing, to purchase an additional 2 million Preferred Shares, Series C at the same offering price for additional gross proceeds of $50 million.

Fairfax intends to use the net proceeds of the offering to augment its cash position, to increase short term investments and marketable securities held at the holding company level, to retire outstanding debt and other corporate obligations from time to time, and for general corporate purposes. The offering is expected to close on or about October 5, 2009.

The first dividend is payable 2009-12-31 for $0.34362.

This issue continues – and extends – the trend towards lower quality in FixedReset issuance: the issue is provisionally rated Pfd-3(low) by DBRS and P-3 by S&P.

It is rather interesting that a financial holding company is issuing cumulative preferreds (and I gnash my teeth about it, because “cumulative” has been a very good proxy for “non-financial” in my analysis). Assiduous Readers will remember that Treasury’s wish-list for bank regulation includes:

many of the [Bank Holding Companies] that have been most active in volatile capital markets activities have not been held to the highest consolidated regulatory capital standard available. To remedy this situation, in addition to the current [Financial Holding Company (FHC)] eligibility requirements, all FHCs should be required to achieve and maintain well-capitalized and well-managed status on a consolidated basis.

In civilized countries (as opposed to Canada), Tier 1 Capital is not cumulative, so Fairfax is either unconcerned about the prospects of consolidation or is convinced that this issue will be grandfathered if consolidation becomes effective.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 29th, 2009 at 11:45 am and is filed under New Issues. 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.