Category: Preferred Stock

Morgan Stanley has priced their previously announced new fixed rate preferred.

The issue is non-cumulative, qualified, NON investment grade and 20 million shares priced at 4.875%.

With all the substandard coupons we have seen I should be used to being disappointed in these meager coupons–but I’m not!! If it was investment grade–then maybe 4.875% would be right–but they fall short of investment grade.

Oh well–it is what it is and my simple answer is –NO I won’t buy any.

The pricing term sheet is here.

Thanks SteveA for being on top of this one.

Morgan Stanley (MS) has announced a new non-cumulative preferred stock issue. The issue likely will be rated just below investment grade.

The shares will have an early redemption date starting 1/15/2025. The issue will only be redeemable on a dividend payment date.

The proceeds of this issue will be used to redeem the 6.625% preferred MS-G which is only redeemable on a dividend payment date – the next payment date is 1/15/2020.

The permanent ticker will be MS-L after it trades for a week or so on the OTC Grey market (temporary ticker not yet announced).

The preliminary prospectus can be found here.

Thanks to mcg and a bunch of other folks all which were on this one right away on the Reader Alerts page.

Insurer/annuity company American Equity Investment Life (AEL) has priced the previously announced preferred issue.

The fixed-rate reset preferred will carry an initial 5.95% coupon until 12/1/2024. At this point it will reset to the 5 year treasury plus a spread of 4.322%. On each 5 year anniversary it will reset again.

The issue is rated BB (just below investment grade) by both S&P and Fitch.

This is the companies 1st preferred, but they can be compared to Athene (ATH) a very similar company. The Athene issues can be seen here.

The pricing term sheet can be found here.

Jerry had the spread on this one pegged a couple hours ago.

Update–link to FDIC site. Go to this page and search bancorpsouth (all one word).

Tupelo, Mississippi based banker BancorpSouth (BXS) has announced the issuance of a new preferred stock issue.

This issue is non-cumulative, qualified and has a 5.5% coupon.

The issue is rated Ba1 (junk) by Moodys. Note–junk doesn’t necessarily mean it is a bad issue.

The issue will trade OTC Grey market immediately under ticker BCSBP. The permanent ticker will be BXS-A when it moves to the permanent exchange.

The announcement can be found in this press release.

Details such as 1st call date, dividend payment dates etc have not yet been filed. The bank is regulated by the FDIC and filings follow a different process than with the SEC.

Thanks to mcg and Gary for being on this issue.

Compass Diversified Holdings (CODI) has priced the previously announced preferred.

The issue was priced at 7.875%, with 4 million shares being sold, with another 600,000 being available for over allotments. This issue will issue a K-1 at tax time.

I had originally thought this issue might be interesting, with a possibility that I might want a small position. But upon further review of the currently outstanding CODI preferreds I see no reason to rush into any purchase–CODI issues trade weakly.

The issue will trade immediately on the OTC Grey market under temporary ticker CMPSP.

The final pricing term sheet can be read here.