Great-West Lifeco Inc. has announced:
the completion of its offering of 8,000,000 Non-Cumulative First Preferred Shares, Series R through a syndicate of underwriters co-led by BMO Capital Markets, RBC Capital Markets, and Scotiabank for gross proceeds of $200 million. The Series R Shares will be posted for trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol “GWO.PR.R”.
GWO.PR.R is a Straight Perpetual, 4.80%, announced October 3. As it is issued by an Insurance Holding Company and does not have a NVCC clause, it is considered to be a DeemedRetractible and a maturity entry – justified only by my analysis, not by anything in the prospectus – has been added to the options table, at par, effective 2022-1-31. The issue will be tracked by HIMIPref™ and assigned to the DeemedRetractible index.
The issue traded 332,564 shares today in a range of 24.97-00, closing at 24.99-00, 1×338. Vital statistics are:
| GWO.PR.R | Deemed-Retractible | YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 24.99 Bid-YTW : 4.83 % |
[…] Recent new issue. YTW SCENARIO Maturity Type : Hard Maturity Maturity Date : 2022-01-31 Maturity Price : 25.00 Evaluated at bid price : 25.00 Bid-YTW : 4.83 % […]
I decided to post this comment because it took a some effort to figure out what was going on.
I received proxy material in the mail form CIBC Investor Services. Specifically it was for shares of GWO.PR.R held in my RRIF. I also hold other GWO prefs in my non-registered account. I received no proxy material for those holdings.
I initially thought there was something specific to GWO.PR.R that needed my attention. I looked online, nothing. I finally got the GWO Management Proxy Circular about the upcoming meeting. The PDF is 72 pages and pretty dry reading. Skimming through I found nothing specific about GWO.PR.R.
However, I stumbled upon this information about voting rights which I will paste below:
“Great-West Lifeco Inc. | 2026 Management Proxy Circular Page 6
VOTING
Who Can Vote
You are entitled to attend and vote at our Meeting if, on March 12, 2026, you were a shareholder of record of our Common Shares or our First Preferred Shares Series G, Series H, Series I, Series L, Series M, Series N, Series P, Series Q, Series R, Series S, Series T, Series Y and Series Z (collectively, “First Preferred Shares”). Each Common Share carries one vote and each Preferred Share carries 0.7213 votes (see (1) below). Common Shares represent 91.44% of the aggregate voting rights attached to our securities.
On March 12, 2026, we had 900,195,077 Common Shares, 12,000,000 First Preferred Shares Series G, 12,000,000 First Preferred Shares Series H, 12,000,000 First Preferred Shares Series I, 6,800,000 First Preferred Shares Series L, 6,000,000 First Preferred Shares Series M, 10,000,000 First Preferred Shares Series N, 10,000,000 First Preferred Shares Series P, 8,000,000 First Preferred Shares Series Q, 8,000,000 First Preferred Shares Series R, 8,000,000 First Preferred Shares Series S, 8,000,000 First Preferred Shares Series T, 8,000,000 First Preferred Shares Series Y and 8,000,000 First Preferred Shares Series Z issued and outstanding.
(1) To comply with the Insurance Companies Act (Canada), our articles require that shares carrying at least 35% of the voting rights attached to all of our voting shares be held by persons who are not major shareholders. As at March 12, 2026, Power indirectly controlled 71.08% of the Common Shares. To satisfy this public holding requirement, our First Preferred Shares currently carry voting rights, with the number of votes being determined by a formula contained in our articles. Our share structure does not provide Power with voting rights in excess of its equity interest.
To assist us in complying with the Insurance Companies Act (Canada), our articles were amended on June 1, 1997 to (a) restrict the issue and transfer of First Preferred Shares to prevent any person from acquiring more than 10% of First Preferred Shares as a class, and (b) restrict the voting rights attached to any First Preferred Shares held in contravention of such 10% limit.”
So the all preferred shares of GWO have voting rights, specifically .7213 of a vote, compared to a common share having 1 vote. These voting rights are bestowed on the preferred share holders to allow GWO to comply with the Insurance Company Act.
I wonder if someone (James?) can say whether GWO is unique in this regard. I don not expect anyone to do research as I do not intend to do any research myself. My level of knowledge leads me to say preferred shares are not generally given voting rights the same way common shares are given voting rights.
Finally, if anyone has read this far, I will explain why I got the GWO Management Proxy Circular. I had CIBCIE turn my RRSP into a RRIF last fall, as required when someone is 71. All my accounts (1 non-registered and 3 registered) had been set up with the condition that I allow CIBCIE to share my name with security issuers but I do not allow CIBCIE to send me information from the security issuers. I do not want to receive Annual Meeting material and the like. However, when the RRIF was created the rule about company information was set that I wanted CIBCIE to send that information to me. It took some time on the phone, because I needed an explanation about the choices, but finally I got all the accounts set up the same again in this particular matter.