Canada – Page 45

First Uranium will be an interestnig story

Ever since the environmental permit for their tailings mine got revoked by the South African government, First Uranium equity has traded lower. Their debentures have also traded from roughly 75 cents to 71 cents.

Today, however, they will likely trade lower because of First Uranium’s corporate update. In it contains the following words:

The announcement of the withdrawal of the EA has not only delayed construction of the TSF, it has also disrupted certain well-advanced corporate financing opportunities, which, along with the slower than expected production buildup at the Ezulwini Mine, would, if alternative financing is not obtained, severely compromise the Company’s financial position. The Company is now reviewing strategic alternatives, and is engaged in discussions with respect to alternative financing opportunities.

My guess is that the common stock will trade down about 10% on Tuesday and the debentures will trade down another 3 cents. The company will likely have to sell more equity in future gold sales (as they have done previously), or equity in their company in a heavily dilutive offering. Management does not own too much common stock and is likely to dilute through equity to reduce the influence of Simmer and Jack.

The latest financial update from First Uranium was at September 30, 2009. The debentures are CAD$150M and they would be first in line (after a $22M facility) in the event of a default.

The valuation of First Uranium, as its operational woes continue, have to increasingly be looked with respect to what the asset value of operations would capture in the event of a bankruptcy proceeding. As long as the price of gold does not crash, there is value in the operations and debenture holders will likely be able to still make a fair recovery.

Most of the value of the debentures, assuming they are paid, will be in the form of capital gains so keeping these outside the RRSP is likely the best option – at 65 cents on the dollar, your split will be 1 part income to 3 parts capital gains, assuming they mature. Any resulting income will be taxed at around 62% of the income produced from the investment.

Frontera Copper Note Exchange

Frontera Copper was acquired some time ago by a Mexican company and at that time its common shares were delisted. The company still had some notes outstanding, however. They were defaulted on by the company mainly due to financial issues that resulted from the acquired mine assets not being worth what the acquiring company believed they were worth.

There are two series of notes, both senior unsecured notes, with a coupon of 10% and a maturity date of June 15, 2010 and March 15, 2011. They are trading around 67 cents on the dollar. The company has proposed an exchange offer whereby people can tender their notes and receive 90 cents of face value (if tendered early) of new notes earning 10% interest, maturing December 2012. The terms also include that if copper goes below US$2.90/pound, the notes will give 6% interest. Also, the notes will be repaid in 25% installments, starting 18 months after they are issued, and can be extended by another 6 months if copper is below US$2.35/pound. Finally, if the notes are exchanged, unpaid interest on the previous notes will be paid.

The new notes will also be secured by a second-in-line interest on the mine assets after the bank loan, but this security is likely not worth too much.

The only kicker is that the new notes will not be exchange traded.

I am not seriously interested in these notes or the exchange offer, but thought it was an interesting offer. The fact that the market price for these notes plummeted when they announced this offer suggests that the bond market will not be expecting they will be paid in full, despite the effective 13-14% current yield they will receive after the exchange offer. Also, liquidity risk is a serious consideration with respect to the untradable nature of the notes. Finally, the international nature of the notes in question (essentially being secured by a Mexican operation and a Mexican corporation) leaves jurisdictional risk issues in case if they decide to default – who do you end up suing? A worthless BC shell corporation when the assets are held in a Mexican corporation?

It are risk factors like these that made me pass up the risk on this offer, but it might be for some other people to analyze and make a killing if the deal actually works for noteholders.

Fiscal Monitor Canada – November 2009

Canada released the November 2009 Fiscal Monitor, which is not too different than the October release. However, the big exception is collections from GST, which is a very good proxy for retail consumption – while October 2009 to October 2008 was down 8.5%, in November, it was up 16.6% from November 2008. On a year-to-date basis, in October it was down 16.5%, while in November it was down 12.0%, a remarkable improvement, but still down from fiscal 2008.

Is retail spending increasing in Canada, or is this just statistical noise?

All other metrics, including personal income tax collection (a proxy for employment as most of the taxes collected are through payroll deductions), corporate tax collections (a proxy for corporate profitability) and GST collection (a proxy for domestic consumption) are down.

The other comment is that for the 8 months of the year, the fiscal trajectory suggests the deficit will be about $54.4 billion.

Market timing – Half luck, half skill part 2

You never know what you’ll get once you get into a position. Psychologically, the first few days after one gets into a position is the time that one typically pays most attention to it, at the cost of ignoring the rest of your portfolio.

With the First Uranium debentures example, my execution in hindsight was horrible – they traded as low as 65 cents today. Assuming an execution at that price, it would have resulted in a current yield of 6.5% plus a capital gain of 19.7% annualized if they paid off at par. You add these two and it’s roughly 26% you are looking at annualized, again, assuming a payoff at par 2.5 years down the line.

It appears that this was some frightened investor (likely a fund) that dumped at the bid and wanted to get out of there – now the bid/ask is 68/72 cents.

Unfortunately, looking back at charts is rather useless in terms of market timing and the only question is whether the position is still worth as much as the existing market value thinks it is. I think the debentures are still the better risk, especially at 26%. There are significant operational issues, but there is so much capital locked up in the project that they’ll have to deliver for somebody – whether it’s the equity owners, or whether it’s the debt holders that may eventually take control of the firm.

Harvest Energy offers debenture repurchase

As the Harvest Energy debenture agreement requires them to repurchase them at 101 cents on the dollar within 30 days of a change of control, Harvest Energy has made the offer today. The expiration of the offer is as follows:

Series                          Trading Symbol                  Expiry Date
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6.50% Debentures due 2010       TSX: HTE.DB.B                 March 4, 2010
6.40% Debentures due 2012       TSX: HTE.DB.D             February 11, 2010
7.25% Debentures due 2013       TSX: HTE.DB.E                 March 4, 2010
7.25% Debentures due 2014       TSX: HTE.DB.F             February 25, 2010
7.50% Debentures due 2015       TSX: HTE.DB.G             February 25, 2010
7 7/8% Senior Notes due 2011    N/A                       February 16, 2010

An investor should look at the market price of the debentures before considering to tender and also look at the yield they would get by holding onto the debentures vs. the risk they would have to take until they mature. Right now all of the debentures are trading above 101, which likely means they will not be tendered by investors – they can be dumped on the open market for a higher price. I dumped my “D” debentures at 101.5 and my “E” debentures at 102.0 in January in a lucky feat of trading execution.