Gabelli Equity Trust (GAB) has announced the sale of a new issue of perpetual preferred stock.
The CEF had already announced the redemption of the GAB-D 5.875% issue for 12/26/2019. With the new issue the company will have 4 issues outstanding–none of which have coupons above 5.45% and this one is not redeemable until 2021.
Outstanding issues can be seen here.
Of course being a CEF and needing to have at least 200% asset coverage ratio this will be a high quality issue.
When we could last accurately calculate the leverage GAB was at 465% (6/30/2019). Being that their assets are level 1 (directly observable prices–i.e. common stocks) investors should feel fairly secure here.
The issue will likely be unrated–they were last rated by Moodys at A1, but now they are unrated. I will need to update lists etc for this change (as well as check other Gabelli CEFs).
The preliminary prospectus can be read here.
EarlyBird and mcg were right on this new issue.