Enbridge Inc. is getting money while it can.
On Monday the firm issued a new $300-million offering of preferred shares, which comes less than two months after the company announced an offering of the exact same size in late September. That deal was then upsized to $500-million in almost no time.
In both offerings, proceeds were set to go toward reducing outstanding indebtedness and paying for capital expenditures. While that's boilerplate language, Enbridge has been busy. In October, the company reached a deal with EnCana to become the majority owner of the Cabin Gas plant development in the Horn River Basin, pegging Enbridge's development costs in that project around $900-million.. And it September the company announced the twinning of the Athabasca Pipeline at a cost of $1.2-billion.
Around the same time of Enbridge's last preferred share deal, its U.S. subsidiary, Enbridge Energy Partners, sold $225-million of common shares. This NYSE-listed company has been keeping busy doing things like expanding its Bakken Access Program.
The dividend on Enbridge's latest issue comes in at 4 per cent, the same as the September offering. Government of Canada yields have stayed relatively flat over this time period, with 5-year bond yields rising about 10 basis points.
TD Securities, RBC Dominion Securities and Scotia Capital are behind the latest deal.
Tim Kiladze