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I can’t bring myself to buy anything, even on the “hiding spot” list. I believe better prices on preferred and baby bonds are to be had in the next leg down which might well come from a new high in bond yields combined with a blow out of spreads. Definitely not a good environment for preferreds and baby bonds but will certainly create some good bargains. Interestingly my best performer post liberation day is STRF now trading over par!
I think max pain would be a move higher from here as many are still short maybe even a double top. Then a big sweep down to close the big air pocket. I am in MAJOR RISK OFF mode right now.
RILY – Deck Chair Announcement: B. Riley Financial Announces Private Bond Exchange to Reduce Debt by Approximately $46 Million
https://brileyfin.com/press-release?release_id=122663
“LOS ANGELES, May 21, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — B. Riley Financial, Inc. (NASDAQ: RILY) (“BRF” or the “Company”), a diversified financial services company, today announced it has entered into a privately negotiated exchange agreement (the “Agreement”) with an institutional investor, which will reduce the Company’s total outstanding debt by approximately $46 million.
Pursuant to the Agreement and subject to the completion of certain closing procedures, the investor has agreed to exchange approximately $139 million in outstanding Senior Notes, consisting of $30 million in March 2026 notes, $75 million in December 2026 notes and $35 million in January 2028 notes, for $93 million in newly issued 8.00% Senior Secured Second Lien Notes due January 1, 2028 (the “Notes”). In addition, the Company is issuing to the investor warrants to purchase an aggregate of approximately 372,000 common shares at an exercise price of $10.00 per share. The warrants are exercisable for a period of seven years from the issuance date.
Bryant Riley, Chairman and Co-Chief Executive Officer of BRF, said: “We’ve made significant progress addressing our capital structure over the past several months as we’ve negotiated three bond exchanges to reduce our total outstanding debt by approximately $93 million. The exchange announced today represents our largest to date and eliminates more than $100 million in 2026 maturities, representing a significant reduction in near-term debt and an important step forward for B. Riley. We expect to opportunistically utilize the remaining capacity under our Senior Secured Second Lien facility to further improve our balance sheet.”
Looks similar to what BW did (gee, I wonder why???), giving private investors a secured position in exchange for their unsecured notes….
I believe this should be reported on Riley financials as a huge ” gain on early extinguishment of debt” per APB 26
Don’t be fooled if there is large profit in this quarter.
The new Wintrust ( WTFPV ) is now trading at Fidelity as WTFCL if you had any open orders under the temp symbol they have been cancelled.
Thanks, Charles.
For me, Fido recognizes WTFPL, but not WTFCL.
WTFPL also shows up here:
https://www.otcmarkets.com/stock/WTFPL/overview
mbg, my mistake, I apologize
mbg, I have been checking every morning before market open on Fido and was expecting the symbol to change Monday, been checking every day since last Friday. Today I started typing WTFC and it offered the suggestion WTFCL and was showing 125 shares had traded pre-market. When I looked at my open orders it said my GTC limit order for WTFPV had been cancelled,
Then again, at 6:00 in the morning I’m still only half awake!
Re the new Wintrust Issue ( 7.875% ) …. I am w/ Schwab …. have been seeing the Pink Sheet activity for past week under WTFPV.
As of Wed 10am NY …. I am still getting a no trades activity.
The answer is easy, yet I have tried all of todays symbols with no ##’s.
Called Schwab …. no good answers.
When free of productive trades, give a hint at my mistakes !! thanks
This was on the other site. I suppose it is on multiple news feeds, but others following UNH might be interested. Especially if you had a family member who was or is in a nursing home and had to fight to get coverage.
I can also see where members of Congress can personally profit from having knowledge ahead of time.
According to the Guardian, the payments were linked to a company program under which its own medical teams were operating from nursing homes, helping the facilities to cut expenses attributed to its enrollees.
The report was based on thousands of secret corporate and patient records and two whistleblower declarations presented to Congress this month. More than 20 current and former UnitedHealth (NYSE:UNH) and nursing home employees also gave details of the alleged practices.
The company denied the allegations,
UNH -6%
May be OT to your post but … PE nursing homes and hospitals seem to end up in publicly traded REITs as “safe” investments. There seems to be a lot of asset stripping, accounting tricks and self-dealing once PE gets involved, so these assets are not as safe as one would like to think they are. Not even mentioning the government program cuts which will eventually be felt by the medically-oriented REITs as their tenants begin to falter. JMO. DYODD.
Surgical house calls? Errk!
TLT is getting perilously close to the Oct 23 low of 82.42.
If you listen to Cramer, and I do have it on sometimes but would never pay to join the CNBC club except to trade against his calls (was a HUGE moneymaker in his first few years),
if Congress passes the current bill or anything close, rates are going to go straight up.
I agree with that , so of course I look for others that agree with me (haha), yet I have a huge slog o long term exposure.
If you consider things that could affect all markets, long-term rates stands out .
TIPS are 2.71 + Inflation this morning.
I noticed that as well. Staying very dry right now, in FLOT.
I noticed that as well. Staying very dry right now, in FLOT.
Same with FLOT. Also use TBF to a lesser extent.
New KKR note
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1404912/000114036125019838/ny20042796x2_424b5.htm
7 -7.125 coupon talk…
Thanks Vito
CMSD just went ex-div and is selling at a higher price than CMSC which goes ex-div on or about 6/30/25. By swapping, you get the 18 cents extra accrued dividends “for free.” For those of you who would consider such as swap (looking at you, Green and Gold), now might be the time.
Disclosure: I did this with a very large number of shares, within the context of my meager portfolio. I’m now completely out of CMSD.
Don’t take financial advice from retired sailors, and DYODD.
Thank you Retired. Good eye! I would do it but I exchanged all my CMSD for CMSC the last time this happened. Thank you!
Between now and the end of June, there’s a good chance that CMSC will sell for considerably more than CMSD. That will be the time to switch back. If not, just stay put. Exchanging right after the ex-div sometimes works, too.
What about CMSA? Isn’t this even better compared to the rest? Why there is such diff in price?
Not accounting for ex-div dates, CMSC and CMSD should sell for about 4.4% more than CMSA in order to have the same yield. CMSA’s price compared to CMSC/CMSD swings in a larger range over time. For that reason, it may be better to swap between CMSA and one of the others than to just swap between CMSC and CMSD. However, it’s easier to see the “right” price relationship between CMSC and CMSD since they have the same coupon rate.
Disclosure: right now, of my holdings in CMS, I’m about 60% in CMSC and 40% in CMSA.
SPLPP looks to be yielding in excess of 10% to the Feb 26 redemption .
Co can redeem for cash or stock (60 day VWAP)
I bot MBINM at 25.19(24.93 stripped) ftf 10/1/2027 5yr +4.34 ytc 8.89 ytc using stripped price and it trades at parity (quantwolf calculator) …the MBINM/SJNK pair is trading near 2 sigma cheap on 1year horizon
New in this board, mostly reading. i bought GRBK-PA at 21.72 Cumulative perpetual 5.8% yld, Trading at the lower end of 1 year horizon. Got the first bunch today
Al – Fantastic alert. I don’t think I ever vetted this one. Nearly $3B cap with close to $100mm in operating cash flow, incorporated for two decades, huge annual revenues >$2B with 20% operating margins and over 17% net profit margins. Cash > $100M vs. Debt $200M.
The most positive momentum factor this company has going is the consistent double digit quarterly revenue growth YOY. For a near 7% yield this is legit pick. Cheers.
According to Quantum Online: Green Brick Partners, is a diversified home-building and land development company that currently operates in Texas, Georgia, Colorado, and Florida. The preferred A-shares are subject to 15% tax, which is suitable for non-qualified accounts. Good choice.
good comment.. grbk-a/vclt pair trading near 1 sigma cheap (1yr horizon) ..has outperformed since december 2023.. on a longer term (3yr horizon) pair is trading fair value ..
Nice one – I actually picked up some shares at 21.75 when I saw it was qualified and going x-div on 5/30. Tried for 1200 shares but only got 698 at that price. Canceled the rest of the order and put the funds back into SGOV.
With all the talk on the US credit rating people may have missed this.
https://www.fitchratings.com/research/corporate-finance/fitch-places-edison-int-l-so-california-edison-on-rating-watch-negative-16-05-2025
Thanks Charles.
BUSEV is now trading as BUSEL If you have a bid in you might want to change it.
MFA-C sure seems like a bargain today. I already have a full position, so I haven’t been buying, but it’s been trading at about $24.30 this morning. It switched to floating in March, and is going ex-div in early June as a floater. It’s got about $0.50 accrued ($23.80 stripped), and will be paying a 9.9% coupon (TSFR3M+5.35%+0.26%) for the first time at the end of June, making it a 10.4% EY. Unless you think they are going bankrupt (please tell me if they are!) this feels underpriced. I think it’s cheap because the markets still aren’t fully pricing in the new floating rate.
Nathan- I like it here at 24.35 and below.. It seems about 40 cents cheaper than it should be, basing that on other mREIt prefs. It’s a great name to flip, as you probably know. My guess is that it bounces back above $24, shortly after ex date.
That preferred is giving you a 560 bps spread. The bond MFAO gives you a 500 bps spread. I don’t think 60 bps is enough compensation for stepping down in safety to the preferreds. Typically, I look for 150-200 bps extra spread from a preferred over its sr. bonds.
Makes sense, but I think you’d agree that we need to consider not just the spread but the current price. MFAO is about $24.80 stripped ($0.11 accrued) with EY of 9.06%. MFA-C is $23.83 stripped ($0.52 accrued) with an EY of 10.42%. MFA-B by contrast is paying just slightly lower than the BB’s.
It’s not quite that 150BPS advantage you say you are looking for, but pretty close. As ‘maine’ said, I think it’s probably going to bounce back above $24 pretty quick once the 9.9% coupon rate gets recorded. I said I was full already, but I grabbed a few more shares today hoping this is true.
It’s kind of silly to not factor in the price, no?! Prices matter for current yield AND and potential price appreciation as it trades closer to par, a very likely scenario.
Nathan, BTW.. the dividend was declared this evening: $0.61911