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Preferred Stocks


dcollon

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watsa_is_a_randian,

 

It is strange that the Series J are still priced at 18% while the Series I are at roughly 12%. I have not followed BAC, so I do not know if they have suspended any payments.

 

 

Cheers

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Guest misterstockwell

I wonder if something is up with the HTH-A??? It IS redeemable this year, AND had huge insider buying previously.......makes one wonder.....

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JEast,

 

It is strange that the Series J are still priced at 18% while the Series I are at roughly 12%. I have not followed BAC, so I do not know if they have suspended any payments.

 

Not sure where you are getting the 18% figure... no such luck.  The variable series J does indeed trade at a big discount to PAR, but it's because it's paying 4% on par... but that doesn't not = 18% yields unless you are doing some math that I don't understand...

 

Ben

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I wonder if something is up with the HTH-A??? It IS redeemable this year, AND had huge insider buying previously.......makes one wonder.....

 

Were the insiders buying the common or the preferred's?

 

The Hilltop can redeem or not at their own choice.

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Guest misterstockwell

I wonder if something is up with the HTH-A??? It IS redeemable this year, AND had huge insider buying previously.......makes one wonder.....

 

Were the insiders buying the common or the preferred's?

 

The Hilltop can redeem or not at their own choice.

 

That is the interesting thing--they actually bought both, but significant amounts of preferreds.

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If my math is correct for the BAC conversion offer...A common conversion price of

 

$10/shr makes the total pfd pool 969.1M shrs

$11/shr = 881.0M

$12/shr = 807.6M

$13/shr = 745.5M

$14/shr = 692.2M

 

BAC's is offering 200M common shrs, which would require 20% to 29% conversion of the pfd pool for full participation.

 

With the pfd now yielding ~10% the common may look more attractive...

 

Do you think the offer will be fully subscribed?

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Not sure why the BML-J would move like that, but possibly some confused BAC-J with BML-J

 

Another short candidate, imo. I would like to hear the efficient market theory academics explaining this one!

 

To your question of whether the offer will be fully subscribed, there is no reason to think it will not - unless BAC's price collapses before the offer closes. (The offer is subject to BAC price averaging at least $10 during the reference period.)

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  • 1 month later...

I thought this would be an opportune time to revisit the C.PR.G arb trade that had been raised when they were trading around $20. I felt then that the 20% potential upside was inadequate unless a short C position could be put on to lock in the spread.

 

We have since seen C pull back from $3.70 to 2.60 and the G's from $20 to $16.5. Beginning to look more interesting here.

 

The arb spread has narrowed but we are now only about 2 weeks away from closure so still a decent annualised return of you can short the common.

 

Even if you are not able to short the common, the G's are now yielding 12% and in line with the other C pfds that are unlikely to get converted, i.e. you are getting the conversion option for free, effectively.

 

The G's pay dividends without withholding tax. The 12% yield is not bad for Cdn registered accounts with potential for capital gain.

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  • 1 year later...
Guest misterstockwell

Bringing this back from the dead--Hilltop is tendering for its preferred shares HTHa. That's a shame too. It was one of my largest holdings. However, I still own the common shares of  HTH which I think will be an even bigger winner someday.

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Guest misterstockwell

Oops! False Alarm! They are tendering for their senior exchangeable notes, and NOT the preferred. Sorry about that.

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Mister..., noticed your comment on HTH. Have been following it for a while but recently was very disappointed by the announcement that Gerald Ford's investment vehicle Ford Financial Fund LP has made a distressed investment of $500million in Pacific Capital Bancorp by buying 225 million shares at 20 cents each, and paying $1,000 each for 455,000 preferred shares that can convert to common. When I called up HTH and tried to find out why HTH shareholders were not part of this deal, I received no response. It seems like Gerald is very conflicted in his behavior. Does this worry you at all???

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Guest misterstockwell

I think patience is in order with HTH. Since Sr. put Jr. at the helm, I feel pretty confident that HTH will succeed. It's a tough environment out there. Lots of entities looking for bank carcasses. HTH has bid on some, but been outbid each time. It's an interesting process. As bidders, they have access to a list of doomed banks from the FDIC. If interested, they are allowed 5 people and 2 days to go into a bank, scour the books, talk to management, make an estimate of worth, and make a bid. A couple days before the FDIC closes the bank, they would be told, "you win--have your people in there this weekend." It happens that quickly.

 

I too asked about the PCBC deal. HTH board felt it was too risky for the publicly traded entity. It is not out of the question though that HTH would come in with their cash after the fact to allow PCBC to acquire more banks in the California area. Since the number of buyers for FDIC banks is growing(along with bid prices), they are now looking at doing deals before the FDIC comes in, just like the Ford Partnership did with PCBC. The Fords own a ton of stock, and they are not going to let HTH languish at below net cash. Something will get done. Whether HTH does something on its own, or piggybacks on Sr.'s deals, it will get done. The risk in buying is very low(less than net cash). The biggest risk is no deal happens. I see no better way to play the wave of bank failures.

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  • 3 weeks later...
Guest misterstockwell

Ok, I was a bit premature before, but now HTH really is redeeming their preferred shares. Drats! Should have sold for 25.85!

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm bummed to see HTH go, but I can understand why the company would be interested in taking it out.

 

I still own a few of the preferreds that I bought last year (RE, MKL, C, BAC, MTB) and have bought the following recently (HIG.a, ZB.e).  HIG is a mandatory convert and I'm obviously taking more risk with the Zions. 

 

I still like this area a lot in light of my views on interest rates and the companies. 

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  • 4 weeks later...
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I always wanted to thank Dcollon for this thread.  One of the Preferred issues that looked okay back then I have held ever since. 

 

Royal Bank of Scotland:  RBS.PR.P on the NYSE - 0.0625% on par value of $25.00

 

I have quadrupled my position in this in the last two weeks.  It traded up around $18 last winter and has sort of been in decline ever since. 

 

Right now the yield is around 13%... It is trading at 50% of its par value. 

 

Now for RBS - I am by no means an expert on the company.  However, they have passed all the stress tests they have been through.  We are at least a year away from the worst of the mortgage morass.  Their core capital tier 1 ratio is 11.5%.  Obviously they will feel some effect if a major Euro power defaults but that is built into the stress tests.

 

Finally, correct me if I am wrong but I have not seen a bank anywhere default on its preferred shares completely, that has remained a going concern.  RBS thought these securities were cheap two years ago and tried to buy them in at $14.00.  I dont think they got too many.  The float still seems pretty robust.

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Anybody has an exhaustive list of preferred trust. I guess some of those must have gone down quite a bit with the volatility. I'm interested by Trust Preferred because they won't count as Tier 1 capital pretty soon. So even if you are buying 30Y preferred you might get the principal back much sooner.

 

BeerBaron

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