Athabasca Oil Sands IPO – First day of trading

The first day of trading of Athabasca Oil Sands resulted in a 6% drop in valuation from $18 to $16.90. I had written about my quick researched valuation of the IPO in a prior post, and also said that I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a post-IPO “bump”:

Once this company does go public it would not surprise me that they would get a valuation bump, and other similar companies that already are trading should receive bumps as a result. I have seen this already occur, probably in anticipation of the IPO.

If you had to invest into Athabasca Oil Sands and not anywhere else, I would find it extremely likely there will be a better opportunity to pick up shares post-IPO between now and 2014.

This kind of surprised me in light of the fact that this was much touted by the media before it started trading and it was appearing as if there would be droves of retail investors that would pile into the stock (before it went down). Instead, it just went down from the start of trading:

Probably what will be even more affected by this drop in valuation is the valuation of other related oil firms, which might get sold off now that the hype has been extinguished.

Inevitably, Athabasca Oil Sands will be running net operating losses for the next four years, so investors will have to be very patient before they will see any dividends coming from their common equity.

Investment returns must be calculated after-tax

One critical consideration of computing returns is that pre-tax is an easy calculation, but after-tax involves a bit more effort.

In Canada, interest income (and distributions of income from trusts) is taxed at your marginal rate. Foreign dividends are also taxed at your marginal rate. Dividend income from publicly traded Canadian companies are taxed at a very favorable rate. Capital gains are taxed at half your marginal rate.

As a result, portfolios should be structured such that income is maximized in sheltered vehicles (RRSPs, TFSAs) while Canadian dividends and capital gains are preferentially outside the RRSP and TFSA.

Your marginal rate depends on what province you live in and also what income bracket you are in.

So if you live in British Columbia, and make a taxable income of $50,000, your marginal rate rate on an extra dollar of interest income would be 29.7%. So to realize a 10% after-tax return on investment, you need to earn 14.2% on a pre-tax basis. Alternatively, you could also earn a 11.7% return via capital gains, or a 10.1% return via eligible dividends. It all amounts to the same: a 10% after-tax return.

The following tables are a simple illustration of the required pre-tax returns required to achieve a 10% after-tax return:

BC 2010 Tax Rates 10% after-tax equivalent
Marginal Cap. Eligible SB
Low Range High Range Rate Gains Dividends Dividends
$ – $ 35,859 12.5% 11.1% 8.9% 10.4%
$ 35,859 $ 40,970 12.9% 11.3% 9.2% 10.8%
$ 40,970 $ 71,719 14.2% 11.7% 10.1% 11.9%
$ 71,719 $ 81,941 14.8% 11.9% 10.6% 12.5%
$ 81,941 $ 82,342 15.7% 12.2% 11.2% 13.3%
$ 82,342 $ 99,987 16.2% 12.4% 11.6% 13.7%
$ 99,987 $ 127,021 16.9% 12.6% 12.1% 14.3%
$ 127,021 and above 17.8% 12.8% 12.7% 15.1%
BC 2010 Tax Rates 10% after-tax equivalent
Marginal Cap. Eligible SB
Low Range High Range Rate Gains Dividends Dividends
$ – $ 35,859 12.5% 11.1% 8.9% 10.4%
$ 35,859 $ 40,970 12.9% 11.3% 9.2% 10.8%
$ 40,970 $ 71,719 14.2% 11.7% 10.1% 11.9%
$ 71,719 $ 81,941 14.8% 11.9% 10.6% 12.5%
$ 81,941 $ 82,342 15.7% 12.2% 11.2% 13.3%
$ 82,342 $ 99,987 16.2% 12.4% 11.6% 13.7%
$ 99,987 $ 127,021 16.9% 12.6% 12.1% 14.3%
$ 127,021 and above 17.8% 12.8% 12.7% 15.1%

The following is for an 8% after-tax return:

BC 2010 Tax Rates 8% after-tax equivalent
Marginal Cap. Eligible SB
Low Range High Range Rate Gains Dividends Dividends
$ – $ 35,859 10.0% 8.9% 7.1% 8.3%
$ 35,859 $ 40,970 10.3% 9.0% 7.4% 8.6%
$ 40,970 $ 71,719 11.4% 9.4% 8.1% 9.5%
$ 71,719 $ 81,941 11.9% 9.6% 8.4% 10.0%
$ 81,941 $ 82,342 12.6% 9.8% 9.0% 10.6%
$ 82,342 $ 99,987 13.0% 9.9% 9.3% 11.0%
$ 99,987 $ 127,021 13.5% 10.0% 9.7% 11.4%
$ 127,021 and above 14.2% 10.2% 10.2% 12.1%

The kiss of death – a mention in Forbes Magazine

I notice with amusement an article in Forbes – “Five Canadian Trust Survivors“, where the author basically states the following will still give out “solid” distributions after distributions are taxed in 2011:

Baytex Energy Trust (BTE.UN)
Cineplex Galaxy Income Fund (CGX.UN)
Vermilion Energy Trust (VET.UN)
Brookfield Renewable Power Fund (BRC.UN)
Keyera Facilities Income Fund (KEY.UN)

There is only one good that can come out of this article: it saves you the time from having to bother even looking at these companies. Just scratch them off your candidate list – if Forbes magazine is extolling the virtues of these companies, then it is a virtual guarantee that you are likely to be paying fair (if not greater than fair) value.

I wonder how many people actually base their purchase decisions on magazine articles such as these.

I have spent the greater part of the day trying to screen income trusts, and I don’t see any exceptional value out there. The only one (and literally one out of the forty or so that I took a detailed look at) stinks so badly that even I have no idea how their business can be made viable, but at least their market valuation is trading such that they think this company is going out of business really soon.

Canadian dollar at parity to US Dollar

For the first time in about two years, and a rare event in a generation, the Canadian dollar is worth the same as a US dollar. The following is a three-year chart of the Canadian Dollar vs. the US Dollar:

This can probably be explained by a few factors:

1. Rate differentials: The Bank of Canada is expected to have a higher interest rate than the US Federal Reserve, thus moving carry trade dollars into the Canadian currency;
2. Commodities: Canada is seen internationally as being concentrated with commodity markets. Thus, more demand for Canadian dollars due to high exports of more expensive commodities;
3. Fiscal factors: The Canadian government is less of a fiscal basket case than the US government, thus inspiring confidence in Canadian bonds, thus giving the currency higher value.

The question is whether this trend will continue or whether there will be some sort of regression of the mean (the Canadian dollar traditionally has been around 80 cents US throughout its lifetime). I truly don’t know.

With a strengthened dollar, consumers win because their dollars have higher purchasing power. Prices in Canada are always higher than in the United States, so a cross-border shopping trip will probably have more value realized.

Also, investors should probably take a look at currency concentration and perhaps consider diversifying into US equities if they are primarily concentrated in Canadian currency.

Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage

Anybody investing in oil should know the fundamentals of how the oil is extract out of the ground. The traditional (called conventional) method is used in places like Saudi Arabia – sticking a tube in a strategically-located position in the ground and sucking up the contents.

Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage was an invention that has lead to the opening up of oil reserves that otherwise would have been inaccessible. There are quite a few companies in the Alberta area that use this to mine oil. A very basic example of how this works is on Cenovus’ website, which is semi-education and semi-corporate propoganda.

Cenovus used to be part of Encana, Canada’s largest natural gas producing company. They split off last year.

The other form of mining, taking tar sands (bitumen) from the surface and processing the material, is done by companies such as Suncor, and generally give the industry a perception of being environmentally damaging.

As the price of oil continues to increase, alternative methods become increasingly economical and it is well worth it for an investor to educate themselves on the processes used to extract energy from the earth.