Schwab deal firm; JPMorgan nearing par; IberiaBank gets temporary symbol; RBS mixed

By Stephanie N. Rotondo

Phoenix, July 30 – The preferred stock market ended Thursday’s session with a positive tone, given that “long treasuries were up a bunch and economic data showed slow and steady progress,” a market source said.

The Wells Fargo Hybrid and Preferred Securities index finished 18 basis points higher after being up 7 bps at mid-morning.

Investors continued to play around in recently priced deals. The Charles Schwab Corp.’s $600 million of 6% series C noncumulative perpetual preferreds – a deal priced Monday – was quoted at $25.15 bid, $25.17 offered early in the day and ended at $25.18.

The closing price was 13 cents better than Wednesday’s close.

JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s $1.1 billion of 6.15% series BB noncumulative preferreds were meantime getting closer to par.

A trader pegged that latter issue – priced July 22 – at $24.90 bid, par offered.

The preferreds ultimately ended unchanged at $24.90.

IberiaBank Corp.’s $75 million of 6.625% series B fixed-to-floating rate noncumulative preferreds also got a boost by the end of the day.

The issue, which came Wednesday, closed at $24.72, up from opening levels of $24.52.

However, earlier in the session, a trader said the shares were bid for at $24.60, but no offers.

That issue came upsized from $50 million and at the tight end of talk.

Also, the new Iberia issue was already assigned a temporary trading symbol, according to one source.

The ticker is “IBBRP.”

RBS profit grows

Away from new deals, Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc released its latest quarterly results, showing a larger profit due to increased mortgage demand.

The Edinburgh, Scotland-based bank also announced that it was redeeming four series of its dollar preference shares on Sept. 1: the 6.4% series M noncumulative dollar preference shares (NYSE: RBSPM), the 6.35% series N noncumulative dollar preference shares (NYSE: RBSPN), the 6.25% series P noncumulative dollar preference shares (NYSE: RBSPP) and the 6.75% series Q noncumulative dollar preference shares (NYSE: RBSPQ).

The redemption price for all series of preferreds will be par plus accrued dividends.

On the news, a source said that RBS’ preferreds were “generally up if the issue traded at a discount, but down if it traded at a premium.”

Of the most actively traded RBS issues, the 6.08% noncumulative guaranteed trust preferred securities (NYSE: RBSPG) closed up 19 cents at $24.80, while the 5.9% noncumulative guaranteed trust preferred securities (NYSE: RBSPE) rose 41 cents, or 1.7%, to $24.48.

For the second quarter, RBS saw a profit of £293 million, up from £230 million the year before.

Despite the improved profit, management warned that the bank’s turnaround efforts would continue to slug along and warned that stock dividends would likely not be turned back on until the first quarter of 2017. Ongoing litigation was also mentioned as something that could impact results for the near-term.

© 2015 Prospect News.
All content on this website is protected by copyright law in the U.S. and elsewhere. For the use of the person downloading only.
Redistribution and copying are prohibited by law without written permission in advance from Prospect News.
Redistribution or copying includes e-mailing, printing multiple copies or any other form of reproduction.