The headline says it all! There’s nothing on their website and a VERY EXPENSIVE data inquiry to TSX Market Data returns no declarations in the last three months.
Data have been estimated as:
- ExDate: 2008-2-19
- Record Date 2008-2-21
- Pay Date 2008-3-31
… which is consistent with both the last dividend (ex-date 11/19) and last year’s 1Q dividend (ex-date 2/19) but is still just a guess.
Sunlife directors! Get with the programme! Surely preferred share dividends can be declared a month in advance of the ex-date and posted on your website! Surely a notice of expected dividends, “if, as and when”, could be posted in your investor relations section!
Good one! . . . Interestingly, the only other two prefs I know that consistently declare last minute are . . . CCS.PR.C & EPP.PR.A . . . very annoying in that it introduces a slight, but always real, possibility of a problem.
madequota
OK, one more question that’s easy to ask, and hard to answer:
In very general terms, I’ve always believed that prefs (of the so-called perp variety especially) should behave, more or less, in sync with the 30 year bond. I’m aware of the variety of specific differences between the two vehicles, but at the end of the day, these two investments are very similar in that the occurances of the daily market should have identical impact on both of them. Hence they should, at the very least, move in the same direction.
Assuming my generalization is correct, why then do these things trade so often in opposite directions? For example, the US retail number came out today, and because it was marginally “better than analyst’s expectations”, bonds got punished both in the US and Canada. But the prefs had a great day in Canada.
Specifically then, why is the long bond getting creamed over the past week, while at the same time, thirst for perp prefs seems to be unquenchable?
madequota