{"id":24069,"date":"2013-12-23T20:34:27","date_gmt":"2013-12-24T01:34:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/prefblog.com\/?p=24069"},"modified":"2013-12-23T20:34:27","modified_gmt":"2013-12-24T01:34:27","slug":"lcs-pr-a-upgraded-to-pfd-4high-by-dbrs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prefblog.com\/?p=24069","title":{"rendered":"LCS.PR.A Upgraded to Pfd-4(high) by DBRS"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>DBRS <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dbrs.com\/research\/263948\/dbrs-upgrades-brompton-lifeco-split-corp-preferred-shares-to-pfd-4-high-from-pfd-5-high.html\">has announced<\/a> that it:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>has today upgraded the rating of the Preferred Shares issued by Brompton Lifeco Split Corp. (the Company) to Pfd-4 (high) from Pfd-5 (high). In April 2007 the Company issued 3.1 million Preferred Shares (at $10.00 each), along with an equal number of Class A Shares (at $15.00 each). The termination date for both classes of shares issued is April 30, 2014, but a term extension has been proposed by the Company.<\/p>\n<p>The Company holds a portfolio consisting primarily of common shares of the four largest publicly traded Canadian life insurance companies (the Portfolio). As of September 30, 2013, the Portfolio\u2019s composition was: Industrial Alliance Insurance and Financial Services Inc. (26.0%), Sun Life Financial Inc. (24.9%), Manulife Financial Corporation (24.4%) and Great-West Lifeco Inc. (24.0%). The Portfolio was initially equally weighted and is subject to annual rebalancing.<\/p>\n<p>The Preferred Shares pay a fixed cumulative quarterly distribution of $0.13125 per Preferred Share, yielding 5.25% annually on their issue price of $10.00 per share. Holders of the Class A Shares are expected to receive regular monthly targeted cash distributions of $0.075 per share, yielding 6% annually on their issue price of $15.00 per share. Class A Share distributions were suspended in March 2011, due to the net asset value of the Company falling below $15.00 per unit (i.e., 33% downside protection), but were reinstated in July 2013.<\/p>\n<p>On June 10, 2013, DBRS confirmed the ratings of the Preferred Shares at Pfd-5 (high). Since then, the performance of the Company has been positive, with downside protection climbing to its highest levels in over two years (39.5% as of December 12, 2013). In addition, the short-term outlook for the Canadian life insurance industry has improved. As a result, the rating of the Preferred Shares has been upgraded to Pfd-4 (high).<\/p>\n<p>DBRS will continue to closely monitor changes in the credit quality of the Preferred Shares and provide rating updates as required.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The issue&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/prefblog.com\/?p=20109\">downgrade to Pfd-5(high)<\/a> was reported on PrefBlog. LCS.PR.A is not tracked by HIMIPref&trade; as it is a very small issue &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bromptongroup.com\/static\/pdf\/lcs_interim_full.pdf\">less than 1.7-million units are outstanding<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>DBRS has announced that it: has today upgraded the rating of the Preferred Shares issued by Brompton Lifeco Split Corp. (the Company) to Pfd-4 (high) from Pfd-5 (high). In April 2007 the Company issued 3.1 &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-issue-comments"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prefblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prefblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prefblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prefblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prefblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/prefblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24069\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prefblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prefblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prefblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}