Yellow Media preferred differentials

As I pointed out earlier, there was a significant yield differential between Yellow Media preferred shares C and D (TSX: YLO.PR.C and YLO.PR.D). The market has closed this gap now to about 0.7% if you use the most generous bid-ask spread quotations (e.g. the ask on the C’s vs. the bid on the D’s).

The common shares have gone on a massive surge over the past couple weeks, and this has translated into strong gains for those that have held their noses and accumulated positions during the meltdown.

The closest analogy I can think of what is happening is what happened to Telus (TSX: T) back in 2002 when the whole market dumped them down to $3.50/share for no real reason other than that they had a lot of debt and old-school telecom was on its way out.

Common shareholders face the most risk and will receive the most reward in a favourable scenario, but preferred shareholders will also come out very well and continue to receive income.

Of course this can all blow up if the next quarterly report is adverse. However, you would think after inking their last credit facility that they would have had some sort of visibility on their results to prevent an early default.