Star Bulk Carriers prices $25-par notes; Capital One gets temporary symbol; Cowen lists

By Stephanie N. Rotondo

Phoenix, Oct. 30 – The preferred stock market continued to tick higher Thursday.

The Wells Fargo Hybrid and Preferred Securities index closed up 7 basis points.

Star Bulk Carriers Corp. added a deal to the new issue calendar, which came upsized after the market closed.

The company sold $50 million of 8% $25-par notes due 2019. The non-rated offering was originally slated to be $25 million, talked in an 8% to 8.125% range.

Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, Stifel Nicolaus & Co. Inc., Jefferies Inc. and Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. are leading the deal.

Meanwhile, Capital One Financial Corp.’s $500 million of 6.7% series D fixed-rate noncumulative perpetual preferred stock – a deal from Tuesday’s business – was assigned a temporary reporting symbol, a trader said.

The ticker is “CPFLP.” The preferreds finished the session at $25.20, which compared to opening levels of $25.18.

About 1.5 million of the preferreds changed hands.

In other listing news, Cowen Group Inc.’s $55 million of 8.25% $25-par senior notes due 2019 began trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market on Thursday.

The deal came Oct. 3. The ticker is “COWNL.”

The notes were seen at par in early trading and ended at $25.13, the day’s high tick.

Away from recent deals, American Realty Capital Properties Inc.’s 6.7% series F cumulative redeemable preferred stock (Nasdaq: ARCPP) were initially losing ground following the company’s announcement on Wednesday that it was being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission for accounting irregularities.

However, the paper managed to end up 22 cents at $22.34.

The accounting issues resulted in the departure of two top executives.

Barclays’ earnings decline

Barclays Bank plc reported a lower third-quarter profit on Thursday, as legal costs pressured the bank’s bottom line.

The London-based firm’s preferred stock weakened as a result.

The 7.75% series 4 noncumulative callable dollar preference shares (NYSE: BCSPC) fell 3 cents to $25.86, while the 8.125% series 5 noncumulative callable dollar preference shares (NYSE: BCSPD) dropped 2 cents to $25.97.

For the third quarter, Barclays posted a profit of £379 million, down from £511 million the year before – a 26% decline. The bank attributed the lower figures to a £500 million charge for potential fines and legal costs associated with a currency market investigation.

Barclays also took a £364 million loss related to the sale of CaixaBank, its Spanish banking business.

Excluding those items, pretax profit rose to £1.59 billion from £1.39 billion. Those results came in above analysts’ expectations.

In the investment banking unit alone, profit fell 39% to £284 million. Investment banking fee income dropped 22%.

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