Genworth MI buying shares again
Genworth MI (TSX: MIC) filed with SEDI last week that they executed a share buyback in the month of August, purchasing approximately 913,000 shares at roughly CAD$36/share. This is nearly 1% of their shares outstanding. In light of the fact that they were making rumblings in filings a year ago with respect to the adverse consequences of increasing capital requirements with respect to the OSFI policy changes, this is most definitely a signal that they are now in an excess capital situation. The share buyback is at a discount of 13% to book value, so management cannot be accused of wasting value with this purchase (a rare characteristic that I very rarely seem managements of other companies perform when they conduct share buybacks).
Finally, Genworth MI traditionally increases its quarterly dividend rate in the third quarter announcement or announces a special dividend. The current regular quarterly dividend is likely to increase from 44 cents a share to around 47 or 48 cents. Management has a good track record of prioritizing buybacks when the share price is depressed to book or giving out special dividends when the share price is relatively high – I do not view a special dividend as being likely. Although my Genworth MI position is smaller than it used to be in the portfolio, it is a significant equity holding of mine and I see no reason to sell at this juncture, in absence of other opportunities.
Toys R’ Us – Looking back
Earlier in April, I said I was going to avoid Toys R’ Us unsecured debt. It was trading around 97 cents on the dollar at that time.
I looked at my quote screen today for lesser-attention securities and noticed they (October 2018 unsecured debt) was trading at around 56 cents on the dollar on reports that on September 6th, they decided to engage a bankruptcy firm to explore options. The bonds went down from 97 cents to 78 cents in a day, and they’ve straight-lined to their present trading price (53 cents and dropping as I write this) a week later.
I ask myself from the perspective of credit analysis – is there any hope for unsecured holders? The easy answer here is going to be no – I count at least $3.5 billion that is either “secured” or asset/real estate based loans out of a total of $5.2 billion in debt. Although their credit facility is about half-tapped (i.e. they’ve got time to structure a restructuring), I find it unlikely that they’re going to wait around until October 2018 and pay off that particular unsecured issue. The advantage of going into Chapter 11 prematurely is simple – they can offer the unsecured creditors (lease landlords, etc.) an unfavourable “take it or leave it” type deal (see yesterday’s post on Seadrill), be able to shed their high-cost items (including conversion of their unsecured debt into a token amount of equity) and move on with life.
There is one reason, however, why this may not happen:
Although Toys R’ Us equity is not traded on an exchange, it is a publicly reporting entity. Bain Capital owns 32.5% of the corporation. Are they willing to give up this equity? I’m guessing their own private valuation of the entire firm is small in relation to the amount of debt that would have to be paid back (if Bain wishes to keep control).
Also if Bain controls most of the secured debt, their interests lie with Chapter 11 instead of keeping control of the firm (via their 32.5% equity stake).
I find this one difficult to judge, but I would weigh on the side of a restructuring that will involve a material impairment of value to unsecured bondholders. There’s just simply too much secured debt and I do not think they will hold Chapter 11 back a year and a month just to pay the US$208 million that’s due with this specific obligation (there are too many others that will be due as well). This is especially true considering the overall entity is not producing a lot of cash.
All in all, I’m glad I avoided this instead of reaching for yield and getting burnt (which would be the only explanation why somebody would have invested in Toys R’ Us unsecured debt in the first place).
Seadrill Chapter 11 details
Seadrill, a publicly traded company that does offshore oil drilling, filed a Chapter 11 arrangement. The salient terms of the pre-packaged deal are:
The chapter 11 plan of reorganization contemplated by the RSA provides the following distributions, assuming general unsecured creditors accept the plan:
• purchasers of the new secured notes will receive 57.5% of the new Seadrill equity, subject to dilution by the primary structuring fee and an employee incentive plan;
• purchasers of the new Seadrill equity will receive 25% of the new Seadrill equity, subject to dilution by the primary structuring fee and an employee incentive plan;
• general unsecured creditors of Seadrill, NADL, and Sevan, which includes Seadrill and NADL bondholders, will receive their pro rata share of 15% of the new Seadrill common stock, subject to dilution by the primary structuring fee and an employee incentive plan, plus certain eligible unsecured creditors will receive the right to participate pro rata in $85 million of the new secured notes and $25 million of the new equity, provided that general unsecured creditors vote to accept the plan; and
• holders of Seadrill common stock will receive 2% of the new Seadrill equity, subject to dilution by the primary structuring fee and an employee incentive plan, provided that general unsecured creditors vote to accept the plan.
This is one of those strange instances where the common stock was trading like something terrible was going to happen, but in relation to its closing price Monday, they received a relatively good “reward” out of this process, 2% of the company (compared to zero if creditors take this to court).
The question is whether the unsecured debtholders will agree to this arrangement – my paper napkin calculation suggests that bondholders will get about 10 cents on the dollar (probably less after the “subject to dilution” is factored in) compared to the trading around the 25 cent level before this announcement.
Their alternative is that if they vote against the deal, the secured creditors will receive everything.
Please read the Pirate Game for how this will turn out and also a lesson on why being an mid-tier creditor in a Chapter 11 arrangement that requires all capital structures to vote in favour of the agreement can be hazardous to your financial health.
I will also note that Teekay Offshore effectively went through a recapitalization, and this leaves Transocean and Diamond Offshore that both in relatively good standing financially.
Want to make a few pennies? Temple Hotels Debentures
This is a bet on the confidence of your fellow investors to vote against a bad deal.
Temple Hotels (TSX: TPH) is a borderline-profitable hotel operating company. Financially they are in miserable condition. They have mortgages that are in covenant default, loads of debt and other issues (being in the wrong geography at the wrong time).
For whatever reason (still can’t figure it out today), on December 2015 Morguard Corporation (TSX: MRC) decided to take them over (via control of the asset management agreement) and recapitalize the corporation with equity capital through a rights offering. They used the funds ($50 million) primarily to retire about $60 million in convertible debentures in cash. Morguard owns about 56% of Temple’s stock.
Temple still has about $80 million in convertibles outstanding (TPH.DB.E, TPH.DB.F), and $45 million of it is about to mature on September 30, 2017. Yes, that’s in about three weeks.
Looking at their June 30 balance sheet, they have $14 million in cash and the Morguard parent would need to pay up. (I’ll note at this point the busy Canadian summer hotel season will produce about $7 million in operating cash flow, but this is not including mortgage principal payments and maintenance capital expenditures which would bring this figure down a little).
Management, therefore, is floating a proposal to extend the maturity of the debentures 3 years to September 2020. The terms are to keep the interest rate the same (7.25%), decrease the conversion price to something astronomically high ($40.08/share) to something very high ($15/share, or something that’d need to more than triple in order to get at-the-money) and do a 5% redemption at par at the end of the month.
In other words, they are offering nearly zero incentive for debenture holders to extend.
Indeed, management is continuing a practice that the Securities Act should ban, which is the payment to third-party dealers to solicit YES votes in proxies:
Subject to certain terms and conditions described elsewhere in this Circular, the Corporation will pay a solicitation fee equal to $7.00 per $1,000 principal amount of Debentures that are voted FOR the Debenture Amendments, payable to the soliciting dealer who solicits such proxy or voting instruction voted FOR the Debenture Amendments, subject to a minimum fee of $150.00 and a maximum fee of $1,500.00 per beneficial owner of Debentures who votes Debentures with principal value of $10,000 or greater FOR the Debenture Amendments. No solicitation fees will be paid to the soliciting dealers if the Debenture Amendments are not approved by the Debentureholders at the Debentureholder Meeting.
Insiders own 2.49% of the debentures. The vote requires 2/3rds of those voting to pass and a minimum quorum of 25% (which should be attained).
So this becomes a test of whether your fellow debtholders are stupid enough to vote in favour of this agreement or not, and also a function of whether you believe Morguard will back up Temple in the event that this proposal fails. You would think Morguard would provide some debt credit to Temple because otherwise why dump the tens of millions of dollars into the corporation and just have it get thrown away with a CCAA arrangement at this stage? Or have they decided that the salvage operation they are currently conducting is negative value and basically want to throw away this asset?
Since the TPH.DB.E series is trading at 96.5 cents on the dollar, it means that if you bought $1,000 par value you’d be looking at a 3.6% gain in three weeks if the proposal is rejected (it is too late for management to exercise the share conversion option) AND that Morguard gives capital into Temple to pay off the subordinated debt (nobody else would be sane enough to do it without ridiculous concessions).
The risk/reward is isn’t high enough for me to take the risk but I’m floating this one out here for the reader if you are!